According to state television broadcaster RTVE, the PP, led by Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, has provisionally 131 seats and the PSOE 128 seats.
(Photo: dpa)
Madrid After the parliamentary elections, Spain is heading towards a stalemate between the right and left camps. The expected shift to the right did not materialize on Sunday. Neither the left camp around Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez nor the right camp around challenger Alberto Nuñez Feijoo achieved an absolute majority in parliament.
Feijoo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) gained significantly and became the strongest party, but together with the right-wing populist party Vox, which was considered a possible partner, and another party, it did not achieve a majority in parliament. After counting almost all the votes, these parties together receive 170 of the 350 seats.
According to polls, it was expected that Vox, as a supporter of the PP, would be the first right-wing party since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975 to gain direct influence on government action. Feijoo declared himself the winner of the election. He is ready for dialogue to set up a government.
Sanchez’ Socialists (PSOE) became the second strongest force with slight gains. They too would need the support of other parties to form a government. However, with a total of 172 mandates, there was no majority for this either. Sanchez was nevertheless relieved. “The reactionary bloc has failed,” he told jubilant supporters in Madrid that evening. Vox is in favor of deporting illegal immigrants and wants to repeal laws on abortion and transgender rights, among other things.
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The People’s Party gets 136 seats in parliament and thus improves by 47 seats. For an absolute majority in the 350-seat House of Representatives, 176 seats are required. For Feijoo, the votes of the right-wing populist party Vox, which has 33 mandates and thus loses 19 seats, will not be enough for Feijoo. A conservative regional party, which received a seat, is also counted among Feijoo’s supporters.
The PSOE gets 122 seats. The new left-wing rally movement Sumar, which is allied with it, is the fourth strongest force with 31 seats. The Socialists are currently forming a minority government with the left Unidas Podemos (UP). UP ran in the election as part of Sumar.
Preferred choice
“The probable election result does have a clear winner: the Partido Popular chaired by Alberto Núñez Feijóo,” explained the German-Spanish historian Carlos Collado Seidel, who works as an adjunct professor at the University of Marburg. However, his election as head of government and thus the formation of a government are still in the stars. A grand coalition could be ruled out. Nor is it to be expected that the Socialists will abstain from the election of the head of government and would thus tolerate a PP minority government as the lesser evil.
In 2018, Sanchez became the first politician in Spain to overthrow an incumbent government by a motion of no confidence. He later took over the post of prime minister from his conservative predecessor, Mariano Rajoy, and subsequently won two new elections.
The ballot was originally scheduled for December. But Prime Minister Sanchez called new elections after the left suffered a defeat in regional elections in May. Now a confusing political situation is likely to arise in Parliament. And this at a time when Spain has just taken over the semi-annual rotating EU Council Presidency.
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