Spain election fails to deliver clear leader

Stalemate seen as specter of right-wing party forming government fades away

Voters in Spain will likely be heading back to polling stations later this year after Sunday's snap general election failed to deliver a clear winner.

Spain may be facing political gridlock and possibly a new election, but the national ballot of a far-right party aiming to get its hands on the levers of power was thwarted, The Associated Press reported.

The vote, called by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his ruling Socialist Workers' Party, or PSOE, had been aimed at securing the left-wing party another term, against the backdrop of rapidly increasing support for right-wing opposition parties.

It followed extremely worrying results for the PSOE and its allies in local elections back in May, with Sanchez concluding that his best hope of winning another term rested in triggering a snap vote before his rivals gained enough support to win a full general election.

While the election did indeed come too soon for the right-wing parties, it came too late for Sanchez and his allies, who lost enough ground to ensure they too missed out on a parliamentary majority.

Sanchez put together Spain's first-ever coalition government, which took power in Jan 2020.Sanchez has been Spain's prime minister since 2018.

Even though Sanchez's Socialists finished second, they and their allied parties celebrated the outcome as a victory since their combined forces gained slightly more seats than the Popular Party and Vox. The bloc that would likely support Sanchez totaled 172 seats, while parties on the right had 170.

"This is a major victory for the left," Jason Xidias, a lecturer of political science at New York University's Madrid campus, told AP on Monday.

Ahead of the vote, polls had predicted a decisive victory for the opposition center-right Popular Party, or PP, and a much poorer performance for the PSOE.

The situation left both sides with enough room to claim a victory of sorts.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the PP's leader, secured more votes and seats than the PSOE but fell agonizingly short of a parliamentary majority. But he told supporters he will set about trying to build a coalition government.

"Spaniards know we have gone from being the second force to the party with the most votes," he said. "I hope this doesn't start a period of uncertainty in Spain."

Feijoo's PP secured 136 seats, which, when combined with the 33 seats won by their far-right allies, the anti-immigration, anti-feminist Vox party, was seven short of the 176 needed for an absolute majority.

The PSOE and its ally, the Sumar party, won a collective 153 seats but also have ambitions of appealing to smaller parties in Spain's multiparty Parliament and forming a coalition government.

But Sanchez admitted his primary goal was to deny power to right-wing parties.

"The reactionary bloc of regression, which set out a complete reversal of all the advances that we've achieved over the past four years, has failed," he told supporters.

High turnout

The election took place amid a heat wave in southern Europe, with parts of Spain seeing day temperatures of 42 C, but, despite this, the turnout exceeded 70 percent of the 37 million eligible voters. Part of the reason was the 2.5 million postal votes cast, which far exceeded previous years.

Commentators said Sanchez, while failing to secure a majority, had been vindicated in calling the snap election because he was successful in denying the right a clear victory; at least in the short term.

One news website, El Espanol, said Sanchez now looks marginally more likely to be able to form a ruling coalition government.

A hung Parliament now seems the most likely outcome in the short term, with the deadlock likely to evolve into another general election being called in a few months, AP reported.

Agencies contributed to this story.