Polling stations in Spain opened at 09:00 on Sunday morning for the country's parliamentary elections, with polls showing a tight race being edged out by a possible coalition between conservatives and the far-right.
Some 37.5 million Spaniards are being called to the ballot box to elect their new MPs and senators. While the election could go either way, certain polls have predicted a defeat for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE and a victory for Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative party, Partido Popular (PP) with the help of the far-right. Other polls have shown an upward trend of the progressive coalition caused by what has been described as a poor campaign by the PP.
Feijóo chose not to attend the televised debate between party leaders on Wednesday and has faced accusations of links to criminality after a 30-year-old photograph with a convicted Galician drug trafficker surfaced during the campaign.
If the PP fail to gain an absolute majority, it would then have to reach out to the ultra-nationalist party, Vox, for tacit support or to form a coalition. The far-right could, therefore, return to power in Spain for the first time since the end of the Franco dictatorship over 50 years ago.
Credit: Belga
There were no polls allowed to be published in the five days leading up to the election, but in the El País newspaper’s last poll, the PP is predicted to gain 34%, while Prime Minister Sánchez’s socialist party PSOE would attain 28%.
Despite popular belief, Vox is losing ground in the polls, and is thought to reach 13% – down from the 15.2% achieved in the 2019 elections. However, this year, Vox could carry the most sway in a PP victory.
Factors that may impact voter turnout is the ongoing heatwave in Spain and the fact that the elections are taking place in the middle of the holidays. More people could vote by post this year though, which a record 2.5 million people having done so.
Polling stations remain open until 20:00 in Iberian peninsula and the Balearic Islands, and until 21:00 in the Canary Islands. Soon after the polling stations close, the first exit polls will be announced and followed by the first results.
The elections were normally supposed to have taken place at the end of this year, but Prime Minister Sánchez announced new elections in May after disappointing results from his party in local and regional elections.
