The right-wing People’s Party Partido Popular won Sunday’s election narrower than predicted. However, its number of seats is not enough for the necessary majority, even with the support of the extreme right.
Both the election winner Partido Popular and the Prime Minister’s Party at the party offices of the Socialists in Madrid celebrated yesterday.
Leader of the Partido Popular Alberto Nuñez Feijoo already announced after the victory that he would try to assemble a government.
Also a sitting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will try to continue.
However, the number of votes of neither, the left or the right, is sufficient for the required majority of more than 175 seats.
The door-to-door polls still predicted the same as the polls said weeks before the election: the right-wing People’s Party Partido Popular will win the election, but needs the far-right Vox to support it.
The prediction was supported by the Spanish regional elections in May, after which Vox rose to support the Partido Popular, which won the elections, in numerous regional and local governments.
Therefore, Prime Minister Sánchez took the risk and brought forward the elections scheduled for October.
It paid off and the result was a surprise.
The Prime Minister’s Party lost to the Partido Popular by 14 seats, but increased its support by two seats compared to four years ago.
The extreme right lost seats
It was precisely the fear of the far right’s ascension to the Spanish government that probably contributed to the fact that the number of votes for the right was lower than predicted.
The Partido Popular ended up with 136 seats in Spain’s 350-seat parliament, while the ruling Prime Minister’s Party, the Socialists, came second with 122 seats.
In third place is the far-right Vox with 33 seats, which is 19 less than four years ago. The left-wing coalition Sumar 31 came in fourth place. The result is the same as the left-wing Podemos four years ago.
Almost all the minor parties lost support, and Spain retreated closer to the two-party system it once was.
The voting percentage of the elections organized in the middle of summer was 70.38, i.e. four percentage points higher than in the previous elections.
The losers of the elections were especially the Catalan nationalist parties. Catalonia also had a lower voter turnout than the rest of the country.
The Catalan, conservative independence party Junts may be in the balance.
However, it is difficult to see it supporting the socialists more than the right-wing vehemently opposed to the Catalan independence movement.
The elections brought Spain to a political impasse.
The country traditionally tries to open it with new elections.