Spain election: right-wing bloc pulls ahead but remains short of overall majority

With 99% of the votes counted, the right-wing Popular Party (PP) has won the election with 136 seats.

But the result is far from an outright majority and hints at weeks – if not months – of negotiations as parties try to hammer out whether Spain’s next government will tack to the right or left.

The Socialists (PSOE) did better than polls had predicted, winning 122 seats. The result is a slight gain over the 120 seats it won in the November 2019 election.

The new left-wing movement, Sumar, won 31 seats.

The far-right party Vox has taken some of the biggest losses of the night, with its seat count dropping from 52 in the country’s parliament to 33.

A PP-Vox coalition would have 169 seats – meaning it would need to secure a handful of votes from other parties to secure the 176 seats needed for a majority in the 350-seat parliament. It is a tall order, given that most regional parties have expressed hesitation over striking deals that could ease Vox’s path to power.

The Socialists and Sumar would have 153 seats together, meaning they could potentially try to strike deals with smaller regional parties to govern.

But doing so would require fraught negotiations, meaning Spain risks heading into new elections.

At: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jul/23/spain-election-2023-polls-results-latest-news

Spanish candidates Yolanda Díaz (left-wing), Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (center-left), Alberto Núñez Feijóo (right-wing), and Santiago Abascal (far-right).

Prime Minister Sánchez's ruling Socialists - who were projected to lose - fared better than expected, and may be able to form a coalition government with smaller regional parties wary of entering an alliance with Abascal's neo-fascist Vox.