MADRID – Spain’s new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez named his cabinet on Wednesday, with women taking most of the posts at the top of government for the first time in the country’s history.
Sanchez, whose Socialist party holds just 84 of 350 parliamentary seats, was propelled into office on Friday after an unlikely alliance of anti-austerity and nationalist parties backed his bid to unseat Mariano Rajoy’s conservatives over a corruption scandal.
But he rejected calls for places in government for hard-left party Podemos, which with 67 seats was a key supporter of the no-confidence motion, and made his appointments predominantly from within the ranks of his PSOE party.
Sanchez drew from a wide range of professions, however, choosing an astronaut for science minister, a state attorney specializing in the prosecution of jihadist attacks for justice minister and a climate change treaty negotiator for environment minister.
“All are highly qualified and bring a vocation for public service and reflect the best of Spain,” Sanchez told reporters on Wednesday.
“(The new cabinet) is pro-gender equality, cross-generational, open to the world but anchored in the European Union.”
