Spain is likely facing a hung parliament after hard-fought elections give no winner hinting towards prospects of coalition-building, reported CNN. According to Reuters, the results failed the predictions of a big enough victory for the rights that might throw Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez out of power. Now, with 100 per cent votes counted, the opposition center-right People's Party (PP) had 136 seats in parliament while Sanchez ruling Socialists (PSOE) had 122 seats, as per Reuters.
A party or a coalition needs a minimum of 176 seats in the 350-seat legislature to form a government. As per the report, the upstart far-right Vox party won 33 and far-left Sumar bagged 31 seats. Vox party is a possible coalition partner to PP, the reports added.
During a speech at party headquarters, PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo lauded the fact that his party’s vote share increased from 21 per cent to 33 per cent and said he was ‘very proud’, CNN mentioned in the report.
According to the opinion polls, the election will likely produce a win for Alberto Nunez Feijoo's centre-right People's Party, but to form a government it will need to partner with Santiago Abascal's far-right Vox. This would be the first time a far-right party entered government since Francisco Franco's dictatorship ended in the 1970s, reported Reuters.
If such a coalition is formed, it would mark the return of a far-right force to the Spanish government for the first time since the country's transition to democracy in the late 1970s, following the nearly 40-year rule of dictator Francisco Franco.
Postal workers arrived at polling stations with boxes of postal votes on Sunday. The postal service reported on Saturday that postal votes had set an all-time record of 2.47 million, as many people choose to cast their ballot from the beach or mountains.
The prime minister's minority Socialist (PSOE) government is currently in coalition with far-left Unidas Podemos that is running in Sunday's election under the Sumar platform.