MADRID (AP) — A fragmented Spanish Parliament convened Tuesday after last month’s inconclusive general election, including for the first time Catalan politicians released from pre-trial detention for the occasion, as well as two dozen lawmakers…

MADRID (AP) — A fragmented Spanish Parliament convened Tuesday after last month’s inconclusive general election, including for the first time Catalan politicians released from pre-trial detention for the occasion, as well as two dozen lawmakers from an upstart far-right party.

Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez won the national election but fell short of enough seats to form a government on his own. He has put off negotiations on governing alliances until after the European ballot concludes on Sunday, which in Spain coincides with votes to elect local councils and a dozen regional governments.

Escorted by police, four separatists on trial for Catalonia’s 2017 secession attempt, including former Catalan regional Vice President Oriol Junqueras, appeared in the Congress of Deputies, while former Catalan regional minister for international relations Raül Romeva was ferried to the Senate from a jail some 40 kilometers outside of Madrid.

The Supreme Court has allowed them to attend the opening sessions in Madrid but they are likely to be barred from future meetings by the chambers’ governing bodies elected on Tuesday.

Dressed in suits and exchanging embraces and greetings with other lawmakers, Junqueras and the three others took seats in the Congress of Deputies among political opponents, including two far-right Vox party deputies who are also prosecutors in their ongoing trial for rebellion and other charges that could land them in prison for decades.

Vox is the first parliamentary party that openly espouses Spanish nationalism since dictator Gen. Francisco Franco died in 1975. It wants to use its 24 seats among the 350 lower house lawmakers to propose legal reforms on abortion, violence against women and migration.

The eruption of Vox in the late April election split the right-wing vote into three groups, which together fell short of the 176 majority. As a result, competition for the leadership of the opposition has intensified between two parties — the once-dominant conservative Popular Party and the center-right Citizens.

The Socialists were the leading party in the election with 123 seats. But with Citizens ruling out any pacts to support a Socialist administration, Sánchez’s efforts to form a government are centered on the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos, which holds 42 seats, and some other smaller groups.

Those votes were key on Tuesday in the election of Socialist lawmakers from Catalonia was speakers of both houses: Meritxell Batet in the Congress of Deputies and Manuel Cruz in the Senate.

Sánchez said they had been proposed because both are “loyal to Spain” and because they have shown “an unwavering vocation for dialogue.”

“They are Catalans at the service of Spain and Spaniards at the service of Catalonia,” the prime minister told his Socialist lawmakers.

The speakers’ first task will be meeting with their governing bodies and deciding whether to suspend the elected separatist lawmakers because they are in jail while awaiting trial.

Tuesday’s unconventional session provided a number of odd situations to satisfy media camera lenses. Vox’s deputies chose to take seats that in past sessions had been occupied by the Socialists, placing the far-right party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, right behind Sánchez and other members of the Socialists’ caretaker government.

Sánchez greeted Abascal with a handshake. The Socialist leader also shook hands with Junqueras, who has become a symbol for pro-independence supporters in the northeastern Catalonia region.

Two Socialist lawmakers also made the rounds on social media when they posed near Abascal in T-shirts bearing an emoji with the rainbow flag. The icon has become popular and has been dubbed “Gaysper” after Vox used it during last month’s general election to target defenders of gay rights in a viral tweet.

Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. </s> Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's PSOE party is on course for winning 122 seats in Congress, the general election having - as expected - failed to hand a majority to any party.

PSOE, who had 85 seats in Congress, have made a significant advance. However, they are well short of the 176 majority needed, while their most likely partners in a future government, Unidas Podemos, have suffered a drop. The projection for Unidas Podemos is 35 seats plus seven from EN Comú Podem.

The Partido Popular, who had made something of a recovery at the last election in 2016, have experienced a collapse in support. They are projected to have 65 deputies in Congress. In 2016 they won 137.

The PP would seem to have suffered from an electorate switch to Ciudadanos and Vox. The Cs are forecast to have 57 deputies in Congress, an increase from the 32 at the last election. Vox, a factor for the first time, are set to win 24 seats. There will now be discussion as to the Vox impact, as some opinion polls had predicted they would win almost double this number.

Sánchez will have to enter into a negotiation phase in order to secure his investiture. If Unidas Podemos back this, but don't necessarily enter a formal coalition government, he would still be short of a majority. The smaller nationalist parties will then come into the equation.

* Figures above based on 92% returns as of 23.00 Sunday. </s> MADRID — The latest on the Spanish national election (all times local):

Spain’s governing Socialist Party has won the country’s parliamentary election but will need backing from smaller parties to stay in power. And for the first time since the 1970s, a far-right party will have members in Spain’s lower house of parliament.

With nearly all ballots counted from Sunday election, the Socialists headed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won nearly 29% of the votes. They captured 122 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies.

The new far-right Vox party won 10% of the vote and will have 24 seats. Its success came at the expense of the once-dominant conservative Popular Party, which fell to 66 seats

The Popular Party lost votes both to Vox and to the center-right Citizens party, which will increase its number of seats from 32 to 57.

Spain’s socialist prime minister says he will consider talks to form a new government only with parties that respect the constitution and promote social justice.

Pedro Sánchez declared his party the winner in Sunday’s general election, a ballot in which the far-right made inroads for the first time since Spain returned to democratic rule.

Sánchez hinted at a preference for a left-wing governing alliance but his stress on the constitution also sent a warning to Catalan separatists even though he may need their support to be elected by Parliament’s lower house to a new term as prime minister.

Spain’s constitution says regions have no right to secede and sovereignty must be decided by all Spaniards, not just by inhabitants of a particular region. Catalan separatists defied Spain in 2017 with a referendum and subsequent independence declaration. They won 22 seats Sunday.

The leader of Spain’s conservatives is acknowledging that Sunday’s election results for his Popular Party are “very bad” — its worst showing ever in a national vote.

Pablo Casado also told his Popular Party members Sunday night that “we have been losing our electoral support for several elections.”

According to provisional results, the Popular Party will see its number of seats in Parliament shrink to 66 from the 137 it won in the 2016 elections.

Casado blames the debacle on the splitting of voters on the right, with many being lured away by the center-right Citizens party and the new far-fight Vox party.

The Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez replaced the Popular Party as the biggest vote getter and is poised to stay in power.

The leader of the United We Can anti-austerity party in Spain says that it has already offered the incumbent prime minister Pedro Sánchez his desire to form a left-wing coalition government.

Pablo Iglesias spoke with provisional results in the country’s third election in four years gave the victory to the ruling Socialist Party but short of a parliamentary majority.

He said “we would have liked a better result, but it’s been enough to stop the right-wing and build a left-wing coalition government.”

United we Can, whose name in Spanish is Unidas Podemos, won 35 seats, 10 less than in the previous national election, in 2016. Iglesias blamed the result on the party’s internal leadership fights.

He said the negotiations for possible pacts will last a long time.

Vox leader Santiago Abascal has euphorically celebrated his new far-right party’s results in Spain’s general election.

Abascal has told supporters in central Madrid that he blames the once-dominant conservative Popular Party for not being able to garner enough votes for the right-wing to oust incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Abascal gave a thumbs-up sign to celebrate his party’s showing as confetti in the party’s green and white colors showered down.

He said “we told you that we were going to begin a reconquering of Spain and that’s what we have done.” That is a reference to the 15th-century campaign by Spanish Catholic Kings to end Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula.

The 43-year-old Abascal said that the 24 lawmakers from Vox that will sit in Spain’s lower house of parliament will be enough for the party to set the political agenda.

He said that the lawmakers “will ask those things that preoccupy Spaniards.”

Vox, which was formed five years ago, has promised to defend Spain from its “enemies,” citing feminists, liberal elites and Muslims among others.

Spain’s government spokeswoman says the Socialist party has won the country’s general election with nearly all votes counted.

The result means that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will be able to enter negotiations for a governing alliance with the far-left United We Can Party, whose leader has offered to share a coalition Cabinet.

Both parties still need the votes of around 15 more lawmakers for Sánchez to be able to stay in office.

Government spokeswoman Isabel Celaa said that the incumbent party of Sánchez received nearly 7 million votes, which results in 122 seats in the lower house of parliament.

Vox general secretary Javier Ortega Smith has told supporters that “today is historic” after the new far-right party won its first seats in the Spain’s parliament.

Provisional results give 24 seats to Vox in the lower chamber after Sunday’s election, with the Socialists taking the most votes.

Ortega Smith says that “this is an ephemeral victory since the left knows that with Vox their party is over.”

Ortega Smith adds: “the resistance is now in the Congress, and starting tomorrow millions of Spaniards that have been silenced with have a voice in Congress.”

Spain’s once-dominant conservative Popular Party is on track to lose more than half of its parliamentary seats amid far-right gains in the general election.

The conservative Popular Party, or PP, was once the leading force in parliament but will likely win only 65 seats — less than get half of its 2016 haul of 137 seats, according to partial results with about 90 percent of votes counted.

The PP’s influence has been diluted by the far-right Vox party, which looks set to make a strong entrance into parliament’s lower house with 24 lawmakers, according to the partial results. PP also lost votes to the center-right Citizens party, which will increase its number of seats from 32 to 57.

The Socialists are poised to become the most voted party since 2008, but will need to make pacts with other parties to remain in office.

Partial results in Spain’s election show the incumbent Socialists winning the most votes in the general election but falling well short of a majority. The far-right, meanwhile, has made strong gains.

The provisional results, with 50% of the ballots counted, show that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party has won 126 seats and the far-left United We Can got 35. That is still 15 seats short of the 176 majority in the 350-member lower house.

If the results stand, that would mean Sánchez would also need to rely on smaller parties and separatists to stay in office.

The right-wing bloc would be short of a majority, according to the partial results. With 67 seats, the once-dominant Popular Party has lost almost half of its presence in the Congress of Deputies, losing votes to the center-right Citizens party, which grabbed 53 seats and far-right party Vox won 23.

Spain’s Interior Ministry says that turnout was over 75%, well above the average in the previous 12 elections since Spain returned to democratic rule.

Polls have closed in most of Spain in an election with one of the highest turnout levels in recent years amid division over the role that the far-right could play in influencing the country’s politics.

Participation in Sunday’s election was more than 9% higher than during the 2016 vote, especially in the northeastern region of Catalonia, two hours polls closed.

Spanish media showed long lines still in many of the polling stations at 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT), when all voting is supposed to end everywhere but the Canary Islands, where voting finishes one hour later.

Voter turnout in Spain’s general election is over 9% higher than during the 2016 vote, especially in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

Two hours before the polls close Sunday, Spain’s Interior Ministry says nearly 60.8% of all eligible voters have already cast their ballots, up from 51.2% at the same time in the 2016 election.

In Catalonia, turnout is up to 64.2% from nearly 46.4% in 2016. This is the first national election since the region’s failed secession attempt in 2017.

In southern Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region, turnout has risen to nearly 57.3% from nearly 50.3%. Right-wing parties won Andalusia’s regional election in December, ending the ruling Socialists’ long-time hold on the region.

A highly polarized campaign that included rising support for the far-right nationalist Vox party and an uncertain result Sunday appear to have motivated voters.

Turnout is soaring in restive Catalonia as voters go to polling stations in much higher numbers for Spain’s first national election since the northeastern region’s failed secession attempt in 2017.

The Spanish Interior Ministry says that by 2 p.m. (1200 GMT), voter turnout in Catalonia is more than 11% higher than in 2016 elections, up from 32.31% to 43.52%.

Sunday’s election comes during the ongoing trial of 12 leaders of Catalonia’s secession bid who are facing charges including rebellion. Five of those defendants are running in the election from inside a jail cell.

Imma Margalef, a 60-year-old administrative assistant, says in Barcelona that she has voted for the pro-secession Republican Left for the first time because “I think it is unfair that they have put these people in jail.”

Pilar Olivar, a 62-year-old marine biologist, is against Catalonia seceding and says she has voted for the ruling Socialists to keep the right-wing parties from returning to power.

Spain’s Interior Ministry says turnout for Sunday’s national election so far is 4% higher than the previous ballot.

The ministry says, as of 2 p.m. (1200 GMT), 41.5% of all eligible voters have already cast their ballots Sunday, up from 36.9% at the same time in the 2016 election.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party is favored to get the most votes, but it is expected to fall far short of a majority. The right-wing in Spain, long dominated by the conservative Popular Party, has now split into three groups, including the Citizens party and the far-right nationalist Vox party.

The uncertain outcome includes the likelihood that a far-right party could enter Parliament for the first time since the 1980s.

Polls close at 8 p.m. (1800GMT) for the nearly 37 million Spaniards allowed to vote.

The leader of Spain’s conservative opposition says that Sunday’s general election is perhaps the country’s “most decisive” in recent years.

Minutes after casting his vote in a polling station at a Madrid school, Popular Party leader Pablo Casado told reporters that he wishes for a stable government to emerge from the ballot.

Santiago Abascal, the leader of the first far-right party likely to grab a significant number of parliamentary seats since the 1980s, also voted in a public school in the Spanish capital.

“Millions of Spaniards are going to vote with hope. They are going to do it without fear for anything or anybody,” he told cameras.

Vox, which has revived Spanish nationalism in response to separatist and liberal-minded movements, posted a tweet with a picture adapted from a battle in HBO’s Game of Thrones series. A sword-wielding Vox warrior faces a wall of enemies carrying the symbols of Vox’s political opponents: media organizations seen by the party as unfavorable and feminist and gay rights logos.

“Let the battle start, #ForSpain” the tweet said.

Alicia Sánchez, 38, and her mother cast their ballots in Spain’s general election at the Palacio Valdes public school in central Madrid “in order to stop the racist extreme right” from making a significant power grab.

“I’ve always come to vote, but this time it feels special. I’m worried about how they can influence policies on women and other issues. They are clearly homophobic. Reading their program is like something from 50 years ago. I’m scared,” Sánchez said Sunday.

Minutes later, Amelia Gómez and Antonio Román, she 86 and he 90, emerged from the crowd flocking to the polling station.

Having voted in all elections since Spain returned to democratic rule four decades ago, following the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, the couple they didn’t have much trust in politicians.

“All I want is for whoever wins to take care of the old people,” Gómez said, complaining that the two of them together receive less than 1,000 euros (1,100 euros) a month in state pensions.

“They need to watch for the poor, that’s their job,” Román added.

The five top candidates to become Spain’s next prime minister are casting their ballots and encouraging people to take advantage of the sunny spring day to come out and ensure a high turnout in Sunday’s general election.

All are voting in the Spanish capital except for the center-right Citizens party leader, Albert Rivera, who cast his ballot in a town near Barcelona.

Rivera, who has focused his campaign on unseating the incumbent Socialist prime minister, told reporters that a high turnout is needed for a government change and to “usher in a new era.”

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the left-wing United We Can party, also stressed the importance of voting on Sunday.

“My feeling is that in Spain there is an ample progressive majority, and when there is high participation that becomes very clear,” Iglesias told reporters at a public school in the residential suburb near Madrid where he lives.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says he wants Sunday’s highly contested general election to yield a parliamentary majority that can undertake social and political reforms in the country.

Surrounded by cameras and accompanied by his wife, the 47-year old incumbent Socialist leader cast his ballot early on Sunday at a cultural center in an affluent suburban neighborhood of the Spanish capital.

He was the first of the five top candidates to vote in the general election marked by the rise of a far-right party and the high number of undecided voters.

All polls forecast that Sánchez’s Socialists will overtake the conservative Popular Party to garner the most votes, but Sánchez will be nowhere near a majority in the parliament’s Lower House.

Up for grabs are the 350 members of the Congress of Deputies, who then choose a government, and also 208 senators for the Upper House.

A divided Spain is voting in its third general election in four years, with all eyes on whether the rise of conservative nationalism will allow the right wing to unseat the incumbent prime minister.

Pedro Sánchez is set to win the most votes, but his Socialists seem far from scoring a majority in parliament to form a government on their own.

The fragmentation of the political landscape is the result of austerity that followed the economic recession, disenchantment with bipartisan politics and the recent rise of far-right populism.

Sánchez called Sunday’s ballot after a national budget proposal was rejected in the Lower Chamber by the center-right-conservative opposition and Catalan separatists pressing for self-determination in their northeastern region.

Voting stations opened at 9 a.m. (0700GMT) Sunday and will close at 8 p.m. (1800GMT), with results expected a few hours later.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> (CNN) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called a snap general election for April 28.

Sánchez made the announcement at a press conference in Madrid on Friday, saying: "I have informed the King. I will dissolve Congress and call for elections for the 28th of April."

The announcement comes two days after his Socialist government suffered a defeat in Parliament after failing to get its 2019 budget passed.

Spain's electorate is also set to vote in a series of local and European elections in May.

A busy electoral year follows on from December 2018 regional elections in the southern province of Andalucia, in which the far-right Vox party unexpectedly won 12 seats. </s> Spain's governing centre-left Socialists won the country's election Sunday but must seek backing from smaller parties to maintain power, while a far-right party rode an unprecedented surge of support to enter the lower house of parliament for the first time in four decades.

Voters in Spain had become disillusioned as the country struggled with a recession, austerity cuts, corruption scandals, the divisive Catalan independence demands and a rise in far-right Spanish nationalism not seen since Spain's dictatorship ended in the 1970s.

With 99 per cent of ballots counted, the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won nearly 29 per cent of the vote, capturing 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies. The new far-right Vox party made its national breakthrough by capturing about 10 per cent of the vote, which would give it 24 seats.

Vox's success apparently came at the expense of the once-dominant conservative Popular Party, which fell to 66 seats, losing half of its support since the last election in 2016. The conservatives also lost votes to the centre-right Citizens party, which will increase its number of seats from 32 to 57.

"We told you that we were going to begin a re-conquering of Spain and that's what we have done," Vox leader Santiago Abascal said, in reference to the 15th-century campaign by the Spanish Catholic Kings to end Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula.

Vox, which was formed five years ago, has promised to defend Spain from its "enemies," citing feminists, liberal elites and Muslims among others. Its emergence on the national stage gives Spain five political parties, furthering political fragmentation in a country that was alternately ruled for decades by the Socialists and the Popular Party.

Santiago Abascal, leader of far-right party Vox, is seen at a polling station in Madrid. (Andrea Comas/Associated Press)

To remain in office, Sanchez will have to form a governing alliance with smaller parties, including the far-left United We Can led by Pablo Iglesias.

Iglesias said after the vote the he "would have liked a better result, but it's been enough to stop the right-wing and build a left-wing coalition government," adding that he's already offered support to Sanchez.

But Sanchez will still need 15 more seats to reach a majority in the 350-seat lower house of parliament, meaning he may be forced to make pacts with Catalan and other separatist parties — moves that would anger many Spaniards, especially the nationalist Vox supporters.

Pablo Casado, who has steered the Popular Party further to the right to stop it from losing votes to Vox, called the ballot the country's "most decisive" in years. Polls only a week ago showed that about one-third of Spain's nearly 37 million voters were still undecided.

Turnout in Sunday's vote was around 75 per cent, up more than eight points since the previous election in 2016. The surge in turnout included a huge boost in the northeastern Catalonia region, which has been embroiled in a political quagmire since its failed secession bid in 2017 put several separatist leaders in jail while they undergo trial.

People line up to cast their votes at a polling station in Barcelona. Turnout in Sunday's vote was around 75 per cent. (Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press)

The arrival of Vox in Madrid's national parliament marks a big shift in Spain, where the far right has not played a significant role since the country's transition to democracy following the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975.

The Popular Party and the Citizens party focused their campaigns on unseating Sanchez, hinting they could create a conservative coalition government — with the backing of Vox — like the one that recently ousted the Socialists from the southern Andalusia region.

Speaking Sunday after voting, Sanchez said he wanted the ballot to yield a parliamentary majority that can undertake the key social and political reforms that Spain needs.

The prime minister said he wanted "a stable government that with calmness, serenity and resolution looks to the future and achieves the progress that our country needs in social justice, national harmony" and in fighting corruption.

Spanish Prime Minister and Socialist Party candidate Pedro Sanchez casts his vote inside a polling station in Pozuelo de Alarcon, near Madrid. (Bernat Armangue/Associated Press)

At the Palacio Valdes school in Madrid, voter Alicia Sanchez, a 38-year-old administrator, worried about the influence of the nationalist Vox party.

"I've always come to vote, but this time it feels special. I'm worried about how Vox can influence policies on women and other issues. They are clearly homophobic. Reading their program is like something from 50 years ago," she said.

Having voted in all elections since Spain returned to democratic rule four decades ago, Amelia Gomez, 86, and Antonio Roman, 90, said they had little faith in any candidate.

"All I want is for whoever wins to take care of the old people," Gomez said, complaining that the two of them together receive less than 1,000 euros ($1,500 Cdn) a month in state pensions. </s> A far-right party has won seats in a Spanish regional parliament for the first time since the country returned to democracy following the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

With 99% of the votes counted in Andalucía, the small Vox party took 12 seats in the 109-member regional parliament.

The Socialists won the election, but saw their support plummet to just 33 seats, compared to 47 in 2015 – far from the majority of 55 seats needed to govern.

The result means that Vox, which opposes illegal immigration and Catalan independence, has exceeded even the most optimistic poll predictions which had forecast a possible five seat win. The party’s platform includes restricting abortion and rolling back domestic violence laws.

Vox had not previously held any seats in any legislative body in Spain since its founding four years ago, and now it has the key to forming a government in the nation’s most populated region.

“Now is the moment to say loud and clear who we are and that we have come to stay,” Vox candidate Francisco Serrano told a crowd of supporters who chanted: “Spain! Spain! Spain!”

Andalucía has been a Socialist bastion for 36 years, but the party could lose control of the government if parties on the right join forces to oust regional leader Susana Diaz, though that would require that they join forces with Vox.

“Despite winning the election it is a sad night for the Socialist Party,” Diaz said.

“There has been a real loss of ground for the Left. But the worst thing is that the extreme right, a phenomenon that has appeared in the rest of Europe, has arrived here.”

Diaz said she would call on other parties to “build a firewall against the extreme right in Spain.”

“Each party must decide if they are against the extreme right or if they will rely on their support to enter into government,” she said.

The Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) scored the worst result in its history winning 33 seats so far.

Its potential ally on the left Adelante Andalusia (Forward Andalusia) picked up only 17 seats, depriving the left of a majority, while the conservative Popular Party (PP) won 26 seats and the Ciudadanos liberals took 21 seats.

The poll had been seen as the first of a series of tests for Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez.

It was Sanchez’s first electoral test since taking office in June after winning a surprise vote of no-confidence in parliament against the previous PP government of Mariano Rajoy over a corruption scandal.

His Socialists had ruled Andalusia since 1982.

The vote is a mere foretaste of the coming “super election year”: 2019 will see municipal, regional and European elections and perhaps even an early general election to coincide with the other May polls.

All eyes will now be on Vox, which could try to use Andalusia as a springboard in next year’s elections.

Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report </s> The Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has won the highest number of seats but fallen short of an absolute majority at the snap general election that was held in Spain on Sunday. With around 95% of the vote counted, the PSOE has won 123 seats while Unidas Podemos – a coalition of United Left and anti-austerity group Podemos – picked up 42. Together, these two parties account for 165 seats, which is below the 176 needed for an absolute majority, meaning Sánchez will need the support of regional parties if he is to govern.

The conservative Popular Party (PP) suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday, losing around 70 seats in Congress to be left with just 66. The center-right party Ciudadanos (Citizens) performed better, winning 57 deputies in Congress. Meanwhile the far-right party Vox took 24 seats in its debut national election. Since Blas Piñar, a far-right politician linked to former dictator Francisco Franco, lost his seat in Congress in 1982, no political party with a similar ideology has set foot in any of the country’s parliaments.

High turnout

Spaniards headed to the polls on Sunday, April 28, for the third time in less than four years to cast their vote in an election dominated by uncertainty. Polls ahead of the election predicted the Socialist Party (PSOE) would win the highest number of seats in Congress but there were doubts as to whether they would have enough seats to form government. A number of factors were tipped to shift the political landscape in Spain, most importantly the rise of the far-right party Vox, which made shock gains at the regional elections in Andalusia in December.

In the face of this fractured outlook, Spaniards poured into polling stations across the country, with voter turnout at around 75% – 8.5 percentage points more than the 2016 polls. The turnout was particularly high in Catalonia, where the independence drive has deeply divided the region. The rise was most notable in inland areas in Catalonia that are the strongest supporters of independence.

Vox had targeted the breakaway region during its election campaign, promising to get rid of Spain’s current system of devolved regional powers.

In two televised debates ahead of the election, PP leader Pablo Casado and Ciudadanos chief Albert Rivera also promised to take a hardline approach on the separatist movement. In early April, sources close to Casado said he would apply Article 155 of the Constitution, a measure that gives the central government emergency powers to suspend Catalonia’s autonomous powers, if he won the election and achieved an absolute majority in the Senate.

Por una España de libres e iguales en donde recuperemos la convivencia y no tengamos que ver nunca más cómo se le niega hasta el saludo a la líder de la oposición @InesArrimadas.



🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/TOqP3zp7am — Toni Cantó (@Tonicanto1) April 28, 2019 “For a free and equal Spain where we recover social harmony and never have to see again how even the leader of the opposition is denied a handshake.”

The tense situation over the issue of Catalan independence led to two incidents at polling stations in the region. In the first, an electoral official refused to shake the hand of Inés Arrimadas, a candidate in Barcelona for center-right party Ciudadanos.

Por cosas como esta, cada minuto que pasa necesitamos con más urgencia #MásPPMásEspaña🇪🇸. Esto es intolerable. No podrán con nosotros.

Todo nuestro apoyo a @cayetanaAT Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. pic.twitter.com/9uskyMUP8e — Partido Popular 🇪🇸 (@populares) April 28, 2019 “Due to things like this, with each minute that passes, we more urgently need #MorePPMoreSpain. This is intolerable. They will not defeat us. All our support for Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo”

And in the second, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, a candidate for the PP in Barcelona, was blocked by several people from entering a polling station in Montcada i Reixac, and confronted as she left.

Aside from these incidents, voting went ahead largely without issues. According to the National Police, 92,000 officers were on duty on Sunday to ensure the smooth running of the polls.

Mobilization of the left

In the lead up to the election, Prime Minister Sánchez warned voters that there was “a real risk that the right could join with the far right” in a bid to reduce voter apathy, which was one of the factors behind the Socialists’ defeat at the Andalusian regional election.

Susana Díaz, the former regional premier of Andalusia who was ousted from power in December thanks to an agreement between the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox, warned on election day that “when the left doesn’t mobilize, the right wins.”

Images of Vox’s large-scale campaign rallies fed progressive fears about the possibility of seeing the far right in government again in a country where this ideology was in power via a dictatorship until 1976, and where many people thought it had since died out.

English version by Melissa Kitson. </s> Preliminary results of the third in the last four year in that took place on Sunday showed that the centre-left (PSOE) is leading but short of an overall majority.

reported that the PSOE stands to win 126 seats, while the conservative (PP) 66 seats and centre-right Ciudadanos 55.

Left-wing Unidas Podemos was on course for 35 seats, and far-right Vox 23 out of a total 350.

The results also noted that Pedro Sanchez's would once again seek the support of left-wing Podemos and Catalan pro-independence parties in order to form a government.

cited a previous snap poll showing slightly different numbers, predicting 116-121 seats for the PSOE. The telephone poll, carried out by GAD3 on behalf of Spanish national broadcaster RTVE, also predicted 69-73 seats for the PP, 48-49 seats for Ciudadanos, 42-45 for Unidas Podemos and 36-38 for Vox.

According to official figures, Sunday's polls that saw a voter turnout of around 75.21 per cent was the third-highest in the history of Spanish democracy after the 1996 elections (77.38 per cent) and the 1993 elections (76.4 per cent).

Sanchez, who led the country for around a year, was forced to call for fresh elections after his budget proposals were rejected in February. </s> As politicians started arriving in Madrid’s Congress on Saturday for the confidence vote that would see Mariano Rajoy instated for another term as prime minister, protesters gathered near the parliament building.

Authorities had feared that the demonstration, called by a collection of leftist organisations against what they described as an “illegitimate” government which had the backing of the establishment but not the people, would be massive and lead to disturbances. Instead, the turnout was respectable without being overwhelming and there were no major incidents.

But it was nonetheless a warning to Rajoy that the coming legislature promises to be a rocky ride for him and his conservative Popular Party (PP).

As expected, Rajoy won the vote, with 170 votes in favour of his candidacy, 111 against and 68 abstentions, bringing to an end 10 months of political deadlock and averting a third general election in the space of a year.

The Galician now leads Spain’s weakest administration since the country’s return to democracy in the late 1970s and it is very different to his previous government. Between 2011 and 2015, the PP’s parliamentary majority – 186 seats out of a total 350 – allowed it to push through reforms without having to negotiate or compromise. Now, Rajoy’s party has only 137 seats.

“Spain needs more than just an investiture ceremony,” Rajoy told Congress on Saturday, as he acknowledged this new position of instability. “Don’t try to impose on me things I can’t accept.”

The prime minister’s priorities are clear. He wants to consolidate the fragile economic recovery, bring the stubbornly high unemployment rate down from 19 per cent, shore up the pensions system, overhaul the country’s regional financing and counter Catalonia’s bid to create an independent republic.

But this is not a coalition government and Congress will be hostile. Rajoy’s most obvious ally is Ciudadanos, the new liberal force which shares many of his right-of-centre economic instincts and which voted in favour of his candidacy on Saturday. But elsewhere there is little to suggest Rajoy will find governing easy. The other new party, Podemos, promises to provide an aggressive opposition from the left as it makes its legislative debut, despite its own power struggle at the top of the party.

Meanwhile, the Socialist Party, still parliament’s second force, is in disarray. Its reluctantly taken decision to abstain in the confidence vote was crucial in allowing Rajoy to continue governing. But the dilemma over that decision has divided it – 15 Socialist deputies broke party discipline by voting against Rajoy – and left it leaderless, with many of its voters bitterly disillusioned.

As part of their attempt to recover the credibility as a leftist force that they have lost with Saturday’s abstention, the Socialists are expected to keep their distance from Rajoy, whom in the past they have portrayed as plagued by corruption and obsessed with austerity.

“Neither you nor your project has our support,” Socialist spokesman Antonio Hernando told Rajoy shortly before abstaining to allow him to govern. “You’re not the prime minister Spain deserves.”

In the face of such resistance, Rajoy’s first task will be to get the 2017 budget Bill through parliament. With Brussels wanting Spain to make €5.5 billion in savings next year, that will not be easy.

“After four years of having a congressional majority, the new situation demands a severe change of style from the Popular Party,” noted La Vanguardia newspaper.

As of May 2017, Rajoy will be able to dissolve Congress and call an early election, should he find governing in this new landscape impossible. His secret weapon is that polls suggest his party is better positioned than any of his rivals should he decide to do so.
Spaniards go to the polls to elect all 350 members of the Congress of Deputies and 208 (of 266) seats in the Senate.