Spaniards on Sunday headed to vote in the second parliamentary election in just over six months, likely to deliver an even more fragmented parliament with no clear winner and a sizeable showing by the far-right.
The country has encountered difficulties to put stable governments together since 2015, when new parties emerged from the financial crisis following decades during which power oscillated between the Socialists and the conservative People’s Party (PP), Reuters reports.
All the signs are that the vote will fail to produce an absolute majority for any single political formation in Spain’s 350-seat parliament, Al Jazeera reports.
The vote is being overshadowed by unrest in Catalonia and the rise of the far-right Vox party. The Catalan crisis has dominated the election campaign, with parties on the right – Vox, the PP and the centre-right Ciudadanos – taking a hardline anti-separatist stance.
Support for Vox surged in the last election, with the party winning 24 seats in parliament with more than 10% of the vote. Meanwhile, the PP suffered its worst-ever general election performance.
El Pais reports that “what has really caught PSOE and PP leaders off guard is the fact that the economy, which proved decisive in earlier elections, has barely been mentioned at this week’s televised debates.
The acting Prime Minister Sanchez called the fourth election in four years – after his Socialist Party won a ballot in April but failed to form a government, betting that a new vote would strengthen his hand.
“There are only two options: either vote for the Socialists so that we have a government, or vote for any other party to block Spain from getting a progressive government,” Sanchez told supporters at a closing rally in Barcelona on Friday.
Voting started at 9 a.m.(0800 GMT) on Sunday and will end at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) in mainland Spain. Results should begin filtering through in the early evening, with almost all votes counted by midnight.
