Spain’s opposition conservative party is poised for the narrowest of victories over the ruling socialists but looks unlikely to secure a rightwing majority following a snap general election that had raised fears of the far right entering government for the first time since the country returned to democracy after General Franco’s death five decades ago.
Although the polls had consistently predicted that the opposition conservative People’s party (PP) would cruise past the Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE) to secure an emphatic victory in Sunday’s election, early results suggested the race was going to be much tighter.
By 10pm local time, with 92% of the vote counted, the PP had won 136 seats to the PSOE’s 122. The conservatives’ potential coalition partners in the far-right Vox party had taken 33 seats – well down on the 52 they picked up in the last election – and PSOE’s allies in the new, far-left Sumar alliance were in fourth place with 31 seats.
Most polls and early projections had predicted that, despite its victory, the PP would fall short of the absolute majority of 176 seats needed in Spain’s 350-seat congress, and would seek to form a coalition government with the far-right party. Such an alliance would make Spain, which has just assumed the rotating EU presidency, the newest addition to the growing club of European countries where the far right has moved from the fringes into the mainstream – and often into power.
But the early results suggested the political hue of the next government is far from a foregone conclusion, with the left and right blocs running almost neck and neck in their race to get as close to 176 seats as possible. Weeks of negotiations and horse-trading are likely to follow Sunday’s vote.
Sánchez, who gambled on the snap election after the PSOE suffered a drubbing in May’s regional and municipal elections, had billed the poll as a stark choice between the forces of progress and the forces of reactionary conservatism.
Speaking as he cast his vote on Sunday, the PSOE leader, who has governed Spain in a minority coalition government with the far-left Unidas Podemos alliance since 2019, said the election was “important not just for us, but also for the world and for Europe”.
Sánchez had argued that only the PSOE and the Sumar alliance – which includes Podemos and is led by Spain’s deputy prime minister and labour minister, Yolanda Díaz – could defend and deliver the progressive agenda he has pursued over the past four years.
But PP and Vox have repeatedly attacked Sánchez and his partners for being weak, opportunistic and over-reliant on the Catalan and Basque separatist parties on which it depends for support in parliament.
They also say Sánchez and his partners have failed Spaniards through their badly botched reform of sexual offences legislation, which has led to more than 100 convicted sex offenders being granted early release.
Although the PP had consistently led the polls and waged an aggressive campaign, it suffered a poor final week as the focus shifted to its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. He had already been left looking awkward after his claims about the PP’s track record on pensions turned out to be untrue, but was then criticised for the sexist tone of an apparent reference to Díaz’s makeup.
By Friday, Feijóo found himself having to respond to renewed questions about his relationship in the 1990s with Marcial Dorado, a friend who was later convicted of drug trafficking, bribery and money laundering.
The PP leader, who was a senior politician in Galicia before serving as regional president between 2009 and last year, has always insisted he had no reason to suspect Dorado was involved in anything illegal and has said he broke off contact with him as soon as he was charged with criminal offences.
“It’s easier to find out about these things now because you’ve got the internet and Google,” Feijóo said on Wednesday. Two days later, he accused his opponents of trying to smear him, adding that when he knew Dorado, he “had been a smuggler [but] never a drug trafficker”.
Sánchez, who was unexpectedly beaten by Feijóo in the only head-to-head debate between the leaders of Spain’s two biggest parties, had seized on the controversy and claimed that the left was staging a late comeback.
“I see a right and a far right that are absolutely bankrupt,” he said at his party’s final campaign rally near Madrid on Friday night. “The socialist advance is unstoppable. All I ask is that we all bet on red on Sunday to win the election and guarantee four more years of progress.”
Díaz, meanwhile, had exhorted people to get out and vote so that Spanish society “doesn’t go back 50 years”.
Feijóo had urged Spaniards to vote “to bring our country together again” and said that, unlike Sánchez, he was beholden to no one.
“I’ve got no debts or deals with anyone,” he told supporters in the Galician city of A Coruña on Friday. “I don’t need to answer to anyone except the Spanish people.”
Vox, which has made culture wars a central part of its campaign, called on Spaniards to come out and speak up. Addressing a rally in Madrid on Friday, the party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, laid into the government over its ideology and bungled sexual offences legislation.
“There are millions of Spaniards who want to say yes to freedom of expression and no to cancel culture,” he said. “[And millions] who want to say yes to safe streets and no to the government of rapists.”
An Ipsos poll for La Vanguardia this month found that the economy was the single biggest issue for voters, with 31% of those surveyed putting it at the top of their list. Next was unemployment (10%) and healthcare (9%). Immigration, one of Vox’s favourite talking points, was the most important issue for just 2% of those polled.