Spain election updates: Right-wing bloc fails to secure majority

Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has claimed victory for the left with almost 99 percent of votes counted, despite the result showing a hung parliament and the People’s Party winning the most seats.

“The backward-looking bloc, which proposed a total repeal of all the progress we have made over the last four years, has failed,” Sanchez told supporters.

Pablo Calderon Martinez, a professor at Northeastern University, told Al Jazeera the election results revealed a “divided country” as both blocs fell short of the absolute majority of 176 seats.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how they negotiate the next government,” Calderon Martinez said.

While Pedro Sanchez was the one to call the snap election in May, the analyst said his left bloc had performed better than predicted by most polls.

“The Socialist camp is going to be the happier of the two,” he said, adding that it was “a forgone conclusion” that the PP would have turned out to be the largest party in Congress.

Calderon Martinez said the far-right Vox had also been successful in making the election not about the economy – which improved under the Socialist government – but about “culture wars” and other social issues.

With more than 90 percent of votes counted, the conservative PP obtained 136 seats out of 350, short of the absolute majority of 176 seats.

The right-wing block was ahead with 169 seats, compared with the left’s 153.

The far-right party Vox was on 33 seats, while the far-left Sumar was on 31.

The conservative People’s Party (PP) was only slightly ahead of the ruling Socialists with 80 percent of votes counted, with no one party or bloc projected to win an outright majority.

The PP was poised to win 132 parliamentary seats in the 350-seat lower house. Far-right Vox was on 33 seats, with their hypothetical tie-up short of an outright majority of 176 seats.

The Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez trailed at 125 seats and its ally, far-left Sumar, was on 31.

The preliminary count does not necessarily reflect the final outcome as large cities are counted closer to the end. Voter surveys earlier showed the PP and Vox likely achieving a majority.

No one party or bloc would win an outright majority in Spain’s snap general election, according to preliminary results with 50 percent of votes counted and the ruling Socialist Party slightly ahead for parliamentary seats at 131.

The conservative People’s Party was just behind at 130 seats.

The early count does not necessarily reflect the final outcome as it comes primarily from small towns. Voter surveys earlier showed the PP ahead, although short of a working majority in the 350-seat lower house, which it could achieve via a potential tie-up with far-right Vox.

The preliminary data put Vox at 31 seats. Far-left Sumar was at 30 seats.

Spain’s ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) was ahead in Sunday’s snap general election with 32.7 percent, according to preliminary results with just over 20 percent of votes counted. That tally was closely followed by the conservative People’s Party, with 29.8 percent.

The early count does not necessarily reflect the final outcome as it comes primarily from small towns. Voter surveys earlier showed the PP ahead, although short of a working majority, which it could achieve via a potential tie-up with far-right Vox.

A gamble by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez appears to have “backfired” as the snap elections he called in May appear to have been won by his opponents, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego said, reporting from Madrid.

“So far it looks like the party projected to win, the People’s Party (PP), could go into coalition with the far-right Vox party,” Gallego said, adding that it was unclear how much of a majority the coalition had gained.

If the results were to be confirmed, it would be an “extraordinary defeat” for Sanchez, who “managed to have successes including economic growth” in the country.

“But that was not enough to translate into support for his vision,” the reporter added.

The left-wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has most likely been voted out of office, according to media forecasts.

The conservative People’s Party (PP) of opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo was projected to have won the election with 145 to 150 seats, according to a survey by the state TV station RTVE. The far-right Vox would get 24-27 seats.

Ruth Ferrero-Turrion, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, told Al Jazeera that an “extreme right-wing bloc” led by the PP would have to reach 176 seats to get the majority, a result that remained uncertain.

Such coalition government would “focus on cultural issues”, Ferrero-Turrion said, putting at risk the rights of women and minorities. Their focus would also be migration, as well as Spain’s long-standing Catalan crisis, she added.

Whether the PP and Vox could unite, as surveys suggest, to form Spain’s second-ever coalition government will depend on negotiations between the parties in coming days, weeks or even months.

While PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has said he would prefer to govern alone, PP and Vox have already teamed up to govern in dozens of regions and cities since local elections in May.

Vox leader Santiago Abascal has said he is open to “creating an alternative” to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing coalition government.

Spain could have its first far-right participation in government since the days of General Francisco Franco after surveys taken in the final week of campaigning showed the centre-right People’s Party (PP) and the anti-Muslim, anti-feminist Vox winning enough seats to form a coalition.

PP was set to win 150 seats, while Vox had 31 seats, enough for a majority in the 350-seat parliament, according to a GAD3 voter survey released after polls closed.

A survey by Sigma Dos was less conclusive, predicting 145-150 seats for PP and 24-27 seats for Vox, which could mean the two parties would fall short at the lower range of its poll.

The Socialists were set to win 112 seats, according to GAD3, and 113-118 seats according to Sigma Dos, while the far-left platform led by Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz had either 27 seats or 28-31 seats.

GAD3 said its poll surveyed 10,000 people and closed on July 22. The Sigma Dos survey of 17,000 people closed on Sunday.

Spain’s closely watched snap election has come to an end as more than 60,000 polling stations close at 8pm (18:00 GMT).

Voting in the Canary Islands, which are in a different time zone, will continue for another hour.

Although there are no exit polls, initial results are expected to start trickling in soon after polls close.

Spanish state television RTVE will also publish its voting projections for each party, based on a survey of 18,000 voters earlier this week.

The first set of provisional results will be announced around 10.30pm (20:30 GMT).

Polling stations will be closing at 8pm (18:00 GMT), ending a decisive vote that will determine whether Spain will be the latest European Union member to swing to the political right.

Catalonia has recorded a voter turnout drop of 11 percent compared to the previous election in November 2019, the biggest decline among mainland autonomous regions.

The latest voter turnout update at 6pm (16:00 GMT) did not include postal votes, estimated to have already passed a record 2.4 million.

In Madrid, the decision to call a vote in late July continued to draw criticism. “It’s a disaster, to be honest,” Borja, a man in his 40s who had just cast his ballot, told Al Jazeera. “You’ve got people in the voting stations working in this heat from eight in the morning to 12 at night. It makes no sense at all.”

While he said the election disrupted people’s holiday plans, he believed that those “who want change in Spain have made sure that they can vote all the same”.

Staff at polling stations installed fans, set up portable air conditioning machines and gave out bottles of water to keep voters and polling staff cool amid record temperatures that are likely to continue throughout the summer.

One polling station in Mallorca moved eight of its nine voting tables outside after the room became “unbearably hot”, RTVE state television reported. There were sporadic reports on local media of elderly people fainting as they went to vote.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, of the conservative People’s Party, vowed to make it illegal to hold elections at the height of summer as he voted in Madrid.

In Jaen, a city in southern Spain where temperatures surpassed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), the municipality distributed 4.5 litres (1.5 gallons) of water for each staff member working at the 39 polling stations, local newspaper El Pais reported.

Turnout in Spain’s snap general election stood at 53 percent at 6pm local time (16:00 GMT), with two hours left to cast ballots in mainland Spain, down from 56.85 percent recorded at the same time during the previous election in November 2019, the interior ministry said.

Voter turnout at 2pm (12:00 GMT) stood at around 40.5 percent, up from 37.9 percent in 2019.

Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from Madrid, said it was likely that voters had decided to vote early in the day as Spain is battling an unprecedented heat wave.

Gallego said this weekend’s vote also marked “the first time that this kind of election has happened in summertime since Spain’s restoration to democracy in the late 1970s.”

A second official update on voter participation is due in less than an hour, at 6:30pm local time (16:30 GMT), 90 minutes before polls close.

Voter turnout stood at around 40.5 percent at 2pm local time (12:00 GMT), according to the interior ministry, up from 37.9 percent recorded at the same time during the last election in November 2019.

Voting will close at 8pm local time (18:00 GMT) when voter surveys conducted via phone calls over the past week will be released.

All ballots are expected to be counted by midnight, confirming the party with the most votes.

Spain’s transport ministry reported an unusually sharp increase in traffic jams in some parts of the country, sparking speculation that many weekend beachgoers were trying to combine sunbathing and a quick dip in the sea with their voting obligations.

Journalist Alasdair Fotheringham, reporting from Madrid, said traffic jams were detected on the Valencia coastline and the approaches to beaches in the southern Andalusian provinces of Cadiz, Granada and Huelva.

“‘Let’s vote and then get to the beach’ is one of the phrases of the day,” one of Spain’s biggest dailies, El Mundo, reported.

Voters were spotted going to polling stations with umbrellas and beach towels visible in their bags.

The mayor of Tortosa, Jordi Jordan, has cast a vote dressed in a tunic from the Renaissance period, calling on citizens to exercise their right to vote so as not to “go back in time”.

Jordan said on Twitter that the voting coincided with the Tortosa Renaissance Festival, which recreates the atmosphere of a historical period without democracy.

“A mobilisation is needed to defend rights and freedoms and not go back in time beyond historical recreational festivals,” he said.

This weekend’s election could result in the strongest showing for the far right since the days of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.

General Franco ruled the country for 36 years. He was never overthrown and Spaniards wouldn’t taste democracy again until after the general’s death in 1975.

Among the places Franco’s legacy lingers is on the football pitch.

Spain’s two main leftist parties are pro-EU participation. On the right, the PP, led by Alberto Nunez Feijoo, is also in favour of the European Union. Vox, headed by Santiago Abascal, is opposed to EU interference in Spain’s affairs.

A PP-Vox government would mean another EU member has moved firmly to the right, a trend seen recently in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Countries such as Germany and France are concerned by what such a shift would portend for EU immigration and climate policies.

The election comes as Spain holds the EU’s rotating presidency. The country’s President Pedro Sanchez had hoped to use the six-month term to showcase the advances his government had made. An election defeat for Sanchez could see the PP taking over the EU presidency reins.