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 According to interim results, the right and left camps are surprisingly even in the parliamentary elections in Spain. After more than 67 percent of the votes were counted, the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) was neck-and-neck on Sunday evening with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s socialist PSOE.
According to state television broadcaster RTVE, the PP, led by Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, has provisionally 131 seats and the PSOE 128 seats. According to the interim result, the left-wing Sumar rally movement achieved 30 mandates. For an absolute majority in the 350-seat House of Representatives, 176 seats are required.
According to the interim results, even the votes of the right-wing populist party Vox, which according to the interim results has 33 seats, would not be enough for Feijoo’s PP. Like partner parties in Hungary and Poland, Vox has a very unique understanding of the rule of law. She is also Eurosceptic and calls for cashing in on prestige left-wing projects in the areas of social affairs, the protection of minorities and the environment, and for cracking down on separatists.
In some regions, PP and Vox already rule together. A “grand coalition” is unthinkable in Spain. Sánchez does not even want to tolerate a PP minority government and thus leaves him “no choice” but to speak to Vox, Feijóo emphasized several times.
A poll by GAD3 for media group Mediaset, based on the intentions of 10,000 voters over the past few days, had indicated that the PP would win 150 and Vox 31 seats. That would be enough for a majority. If the PP and Vox were to form an alliance, it would be the first time since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975 that a right-wing party would have direct influence on government action.
The ballot was originally scheduled for December. But Sanchez called new elections after the left suffered a defeat in regional elections in May. The head of government’s socialists are currently forming a minority government with the left-wing Unidas Podemos (UP). UP ran in the election in the leftist rally Sumar.
On Sunday, parts of the Senate were re-elected in addition to the lower house “Congreso de los Diputados”. In Spain, however, the upper house plays no role in forming a government.
The parliamentary election was actually scheduled for the end of the year. But Sánchez preferred it after the debacle of the left parties in the May 28 regional elections. The left-wing government repeatedly warned that a right-wing government would undo the social gains of recent years and set the country back decades. She went unheard.
More: Spain before the shift to the right: how dangerous is Vox?