Wednesday December 04, 2024

Right-wing party wins Spanish general polls

Published : 24 Jul 2023, 13:44

  DF News Desk
A woman casts her ballot at a polling station in Madrid, Spain, on July 23, 2023. Photo: Xinhua.

Spain's opposition right-wing People's Party (PP) has won Sunday's general elections with 99.79 percent of the votes counted, while no single party garnered enough parliamentary seats to form a government, reported Xinhua.

The results showed that the PP had won 136 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish parliament. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won 122 seats.

Vox won 33 seats, which means that a coalition with the PP would fall well short of the 176 seats needed for a majority in the lower chamber to form a government. Meanwhile, the left-wing Sumar won 31 seats, meaning that a PSOE-Sumar coalition would also fall short of a majority.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the PP, said that he would start conversations to form a government.

"I will open a dialogue and try to govern our country in accord with the results," said Feijoo from the balcony of the PP headquarters in Madrid.

The Basque nationalist parties Bildu and PNV won 6 and 5 seats respectively and the Catalan parties JuntsXCat and Ezquerra Republicana (ERC) took 7 seats each. None of them are likely to lend their support to a possible PP/Vox coalition. Prospects for a coalition government now remain uncertain.