Spain won’t hold early elections – aide to new PM

A close aide to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has rejected any prospect of early elections, Reuters reported on Monday. The new PM’s Socialist Party is well short of a majority in parliament, holding just 84 of 350 seats. Sanchez was propelled to the position of head of government on Friday after convincing an unlikely alliance of anti-austerity and nationalist parties to oust the conservatives over a corruption scandal. “It’s clearly unusual to govern with 84 lawmakers but the political situation remains very fragmented and everything suggests a new election wouldn’t fix that,” Jose Luis Abalos, seen as Sanchez's right-hand man, told COPE radio.