The extreme right placed its flag in the Spanish parliament, a territory from which it had been banned until now. Vox, the party led by Santiago Abascal, former member of the conservative Popular Party (PP), won 24 seats in the Spanish Congress of Deputies in a general election won by the Social Democratic Party (PSOE).
The socialists of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won 123 seats (28.70% of the votes). The other great traditional party, the conservative PP, suffered a historical debacle when obtaining 16.68% of the votes and falling to 66 seats (it had 135 in 2016).
The center-rightist Ciudadanos, with 15.84%, was another winners of the night by obtaining 57 seats, compared to the 32 they had before. Vox, with its anti-immigration message, got 10.26% of the votes and 24 seats.
The leftist forces agglutinated around the candidacy of Unidas Podemos suffered a defeat: they only attracted 14.31% of the votes and got 42 seats (previously they had 71). The Catalan separatists ERC and JxCAT won 15 and 7 seats, respectively, while the Basque nationalists of PNV and Bildu won 6 and 4, respectively.
A comfortable majority
The results predict to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a comfortable majority to form a government. The number two of his team, caretaker vice primer minister Carmen Calvo, already advanced this morning to the Spanish radio station SER that their goal is to govern without any coalition.
However, the social democrats will need to agree with other forces in Parliament in order to guarantee stability and to be able to pass their laws. A parliamentary agreement between PSOE and Unidas Podemos and the sporadic support of other minor forces could be sufficient.
