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The Socialist Party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won the largest number of votes in early elections on Sunday, but not enough to form a government without the support of the coalition. The far-right party Vox won 10% of the vote, less than the polls.
The Socialist Party won 123 of the 350 seats in parliament with about 29% of the vote, a short majority, but well above the 85 seats won in the last elections in 2016.
Sanchez came to power in June following a no-confidence vote against conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose popular party had won 66 seats, compared to 137 on those won in previous elections.
"The Socialists won the parliamentary elections and with them the future was won and the past lost," Sanchez told supporters at the party's headquarters in Madrid on Sunday night.
But the result means that Sanchez will have to form a coalition with hostile forces to govern.
Over the past ten months, he has ruled through alliances with supporters of radical left-wing parties Podemos or separatists in Catalonia, whose refusal to support Sanchez's 2019 budget led to the holding of the party. early elections on Sunday.
Sanchez could also seek an agreement with the center-right Ciudadanos (Citizens), whose 57 seats would guarantee an absolute majority. However, supporters of both parties would likely be disapproved of by such an agreement.
The leader of Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera, based his campaign on Sanchez, criticizing in particular his attempts to negotiate with the separatist parties of Catalonia in order to mitigate the secessionist crisis of the North-East region.
The far right multiplies criticism of Catalan separatists
The crisis in Catalonia, which erupted as a result of an unauthorized referendum on independence in 2017, also fueled the rise of the ultra-nationalist Vox party in the southern region of the country. Andalusia.
During the campaign, Vox pleaded for "defense of the Spanish nation until the end" and a hard line against the Catalan separatists.
The party garnered just over 10% of the vote on Sunday, which means that Spain has its first right-wing political force since dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975.
Opinion polls predicted better results, but party leader Santiago Abascal was more optimistic. "We can tell Spain with absolute calm that Vox has come to stay," he told his supporters.
Other right-wing parties have attacked Sanchez for talking to separatists who they claim have attempted to break Spain.
The instability provoked by Catalan separatism and its consequences are likely to continue to influence Spanish politics, with two pro-independent parties reinforcing their shared presence in parliament from 17 to 22 seats on Sunday.
The five newly elected separatists are in prison and are currently being tried by the Spanish Supreme Court.
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