Spain's Ciudadanos leader quits after election slump

Albert Rivera resigned on Monday as leader of the liberal Ciudadanos (Citizens') party in Spain in the wake of his party's poor results in Sunday's general election.

Ciudadanos went from winning 57 seats and 15.86 percent of votes in the April 28 general election to claiming just 6.79 percent of votes this past Sunday and taking only ten seats.

The 47 seats lost by Ciudadanos were won by the People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party. The latter party saw its representation in the Spanish Congress of Deputies (lower chamber) climb from 24 seats to 52 seats.

Speaking to the press, Rivera took responsibility for the results.

"Out of responsibility I must resign from this position," he said, adding that he would not be taking his seat in the lower chamber as it was best to "make way for another deputy who is passionate about entering Congress."

Rivera has led Ciudadanos for 13 years, taking it from being a regional anti-independence party in the Catalan region of northeast Spain to becoming a player on the national stage.

However, he was criticized for moving Ciudadanos sharply to the right in an attempt to compete with the PP and for his refusal to negotiate with acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist Party (PSOE) in the wake of the April 28 election, which was one of the reasons Spaniards had to return to the polls on Sunday.

Sunday's election again saw the Socialists win the most seats, but it also produced a deeply fragmented parliament, where it will be hard for anyone to form a viable and stable government.