Socialism won in Spain and would form a government with Podemos

Madrid The Socialist Party won the parliamentary elections in Spain yesterday, but it will need pacts to renew its government, while the Popular Party has lost more than half of its deputies due to the eruption of the government. far right in the lower house for the first time in four decades.

With close to one hundred percent of the vote counted, the party of the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, won 123 seats, or 28.6% of the vote, but it was far from the 176 seats granting the parliamentary majority. On the other side of the political spectrum, Vox, who, a few months ago, was a residual formation, entered Parliament with force: the far right will have 24 representatives for the first time since the 1980s.

In his speech to his supporters, Sanchez said that he would open a process of dialogue with other political groups to try to forge what could be the first coalition of Spanish democracy. "We will not put sanitary cables in. The only condition is to respect the Constitution, to progress towards social justice, coexistence and political cleansing," he said before a podium in front of the headquarters. of the party, in the center of Madrid.

Sanchez, accompanied by several party leaders and his wife, heard the militancy chant repeatedly: "Con (Albert) Rivera, no!", Alluding to a possible pact with the center-right party, Citizens L & # 39, one of the big winners of the evening was crowned third political force with 57 parliamentarians.

His most likely government partner would be the anti-austerity party Podemos, which, along with its Catalan affiliate ECP-Guanyem, attracted 42 representatives, although it received less support than three years earlier. As during the election campaign, his leader, Pablo Iglesias, was open during the electoral night to negotiate with the PSOE.

"The progressive forces as a whole have more parliamentary weight than the right wing and the far right," Iglesias said.

The Spaniards went to vote en mbade on a sunny and hot day during which the turnout reached 75.75%, or 26.3 million voters, according to the Interior Ministry, against 66.48% of the general elections of 2016

The entry of Vox to Parliament has redefined the distribution of forces in the Spanish right. The People's Party, the most voted in 2016, suffered a resounding loss and rose to 66 representatives of the 137 deputies of the last term.