Spain heads to polls with political future on knife edge
Spain’s political future was on a knife edge on Sunday night as polls closed and counting began in a general election marked by the emotive issue of Catalan separatism and the emergence of hard-Right party Vox.
According to provisional results from the count after Sunday’s general election in Spain, it appeared that Spain’s conservative forces would fail to win the majority they craved in order to oust Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Vox was on course to become the first hard-Right force to gain significant representation in Spain’s parliament since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 with around 20 seats out of 350 after 23 per cent of the votes had been counted.
But the main conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) was set to lose half of the 137 seats it achieved when winning the previous election in 2016.
“Vox will represent many Spaniards who previously had no voice,” said Rocío Monasterio, one of the party’s leaders, who hailed the result as “historic”.
High turnout figures boosted expectations that the incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party (PSOE) would win, albeit falling far short of a majority.
Two hours before polls closed, 60.7 per cent of voters had cast their ballots, compared to 51.2 per cent at the same point in the previous general elections in 2016. The most recent PSOE general election win, in 2008, came the last time the final turnout figure topped 70 per cent.
Vox, which won just 0.2 per cent in 2016, was polling at around 10 per cent throughout the campaign, the ultra-Catholic and anti-immigration party threatening to make an already complex political situation even more fraught.
Vox, together with the main conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) and liberal Ciudadanos, have accused Mr Sánchez of being a danger to Spanish unity after he attempted to seek a negotiated end to the impasse between Madrid and Catalonia’s regional government, which demands the right to self-determination.
Mr Sánchez used the campaign to stress that the PSOE would never accept a self-determination referendum in Catalonia, while promising an end to the austerity era with the support of hard-Left coalition partner Podemos. The two Left-wing parties may also need the support of Basque nationalists, but hope to avoid any need to seek renewed support from Catalan parties.
On the Right, the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox were hoping to combine for a majority whose prime purpose would be to impose direct rule on Catalonia and depose the region’s current government and reform its institutions.
The election is Spain’s third in less than four years, with few observers confident that the result will lead to a stable government capable of seeing out its four-year term.