SPANISH acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez failed to get parliamentary endorsement for a coalition with left-wing alliance Unidas Podemos today.

Mr Sanchez, who heads the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), mustered 166 votes in favour from his own 120 MPs, Unidas Podemos’s 35 and smaller regional parties — more than the 165 votes against, but short of the 176 needed for an absolute majority.

The expected setback is unlikely to prevent the coalition from forming as subsequent votes will only require a simple majority (more votes for than against), which the same numbers would give him when he tries again tomorrow.

But it underlines the likely fragility of his new government following two elections last year that failed to give any party or coalition a majority.

To win even 166 votes the PSOE has had to open talks with the Catalan regional government run by the separatist ERC party, prompting accusations from the right that he could endanger Spain’s territorial integrity, though he has ruled out allowing any referendum on independence.

But he struck a confident note in the parliament, declaring that “Spain is not going to fracture. The only thing that is going to be broken is the blockade to a progressive government democratically elected by Spaniards.”

Human rights groups have called for an investigation into Spanish authorities’ expulsion of 42 refugees from a Spanish-ruled island off Morocco.

Walking Borders joined 60 other groups in saying the refugees, who were returned from landing on one of the Chafarinas isles, were returned to Morocco in violation of European Court of Human Rights-affirmed protections that say undocumented migrants disembarking on European soil should have their asylum claims processed.