Spain: Sánchez’ Socialists Win Election, But Fail To Gain Majority

Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE), led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, won Sunday’s General Elections, however as the PSOE did not win an absolute majority of 178 parliament seats they will be forced to strike an agreement with another party to govern.

No party has held an absolute majority in Spain’s parliament since 2011. Sunday’s election results continue to show an extremely divided society.

This is the third time that Spain has held general elections since 2015.

Prime Minister Sánchez called for snap elections in February after suffering a defeat in parliament after failing to garner support for his national budget proposal.

With around 99.9% of the votes counted, the PSOE won 28.7% of the votes to grant them 123 parliamentary seats, gaining 84 seats from what they previously held, out of the total 350 possible parliament seats.

However, together with the Unidas Podemos party, which won 42 seats, the total of the two major left-leaning parties’ 165 seats (including the PSOE) still falls short of the 178 majority.

The center-right Partido Popular Party (PP), of the previous Mariano Rajoy and Jose Maria Aznar governments, suffered a serious setback in the elections, dropping to 66 seats in parliament, from its previous 135 seats.

The total seats held by right-leaning political parties, were 147 seats, of which 66 are to be held by the aforementioned PP, and 57 seats by Ciudadanos and 24 by new-comer Vox (Voice), often described as a right-wing populist party.

This is the first time that Vox — formed by former PP members — will have parliamentary representation, after winning 10% of the votes.