Socialists win Spain election, far-right emerges as player

MADRID – Spain’s governing center-left Socialists won the country’s election Sunday but must seek backing from smaller parties to maintain power, while a far-right party rode an unprecedented surge of support to enter the lower house of parliament for the first time in four decades.

With 99% of ballots counted, the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won 29% of the vote, capturing 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies.

The new far-right Vox party made its national breakthrough by capturing 10% of the vote, which would give it 24 seats.

Sánchez announced that he would soon open talks with other political parties, telling crowds gathered at the gates of his party headquarters in central Madrid that “the future has won and the past has lost.”

Spain’s Prime Minister and Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez gestures to supporters outside the party headquarters following the general election in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, April 28, 2019. A divided Spain voted Sunday in its third general election in four years, with all eyes on whether a far-right party will enter Parliament for the first time in decades and potentially help unseat the Socialist government. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

He hinted at a preference for a left-wing governing alliance but also sent a warning to Catalan separatists whose support he may need that any post-electoral pact must respect the country’s 1978 constitution, which bans regions from seceding.

“The only condition is to respect the constitution, move toward social justice, coexistence and political cleanliness,” Sánchez said of his criteria for working with other parties.

Vox’s success came at the expense of the once-dominant conservative Popular Party, which fell to 66 seats, losing more than half of its representation since the last election in 2016.

The conservatives lost votes both to Vox and to the center-right Citizens party, which will increase its number of seats from 32 to 57.

Voters in Spain had become disillusioned as the country struggled with a recession, austerity cuts, corruption scandals, divisive demands for independence from the restive Catalonia region and a rise in far-right nationalism not seen since Spain’s dictatorship ended in the 1970s.

“We told you that we were going to begin a reconquering of Spain and that’s what we have done,” Vox leader Santiago Abascal said, referring to the 15th century campaign by Spanish Catholic kingdoms to end Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula.

Vox, which was formed five years ago, has promised to defend Spain from its “enemies,” citing feminists, liberal elites and Muslims among others.

Its emergence on the national stage gives Spain five political parties, furthering political fragmentation in a country that was alternately ruled for decades by the Socialists and the Popular Party.

To stay in office, the Socialists and Sánchez must form a governing alliance with smaller parties, including the far-left United We Can led by Pablo Iglesias.

Iglesias said after the vote the he “would have liked a better result, but it’s been enough to stop the right-wing and build a left-wing coalition government,” adding that he’s already offered support to Sánchez.

But Sánchez will still need support from 11 more seats to produce a 176-seat majority in the lower house of parliament, meaning he may be forced to make pacts with Catalan and other separatist parties — moves that would anger many Spaniards on the left and the right.

Pablo Casado, who had steered the Popular Party further to the right to try to stop it from losing votes to Vox, called his party’s worst ballot result ever “very bad,” saying that “we’ve been losing our electoral support for several elections.”

The once-dominant conservative party also took a big blow in the Senate, losing the absolute majority to the Socialists.

Turnout was nearly 76%, up more than 8 points since the previous election in 2016.

The vote surge included a huge boost in the northeastern Catalonia region, which has been embroiled in a political quagmire since its failed secession bid in 2017 put separatist leaders in jail while they are tried. /gsg