A woman walks past a Chinese food store at Usera district in Madrid, Spain, July 24, 2017. Reuters / Susana Vera
MADRID: Polls have closed in continental Spain in the country's national election, where left-wing and right-wing parties are fiercely competing to see who can form the next coalition government.
A survey by Spain's public broadcaster released as the polls closed says the ruling Socialists are en route to win the country's second election this year but will be even further from putting together a parliamentary majority. In the last vote in April, the Socialists won 123 seats in the parliament's lower house, 53 seats short of a majority. The survey predicts the Socialists will lose up to nine seats.
The survey also shows that the far-right Vox party is poised to become Spain's third-biggest political force only six months after it debuted in the country's parliament.
The RTVE survey, which polled more than 13,000 voters between Oct. 25 and Sunday's ballot, signaled that Spain may run into another political stalemate. It had a margin of error of 0.82 percentage points
The entire 350-seat lower house and 208 senators were being elected Sunday, chosen by Spain's 37 million eligible voters. Polls in the Canary Islands remain open for another hour.
Earlier in the day, a leading leftist party pledged to help Spain's incumbent Socialists in hopes of staving off a possible right-wing coalition government that could include the far-right Vox party.
Spain's United We Can party leader Pablo Iglesias said he will offer assistance to the Socialists, led by interim Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, to form a stable leftist government. Sunday's repeated election was called after the Socialists and United We Can -currently Spain's fourth-largest party in parliament- failed to reach an agreement following the last election in April.
"We think that combining the courage of United We Can and the experience of the Socialist party we can convert our country into a reference point for social policies," Iglesias said Sunday.
Spain's four main parties have focused their campaigns on how to deal with the independence push in the northeastern region of Catalonia and the feared surge of the far-right Vox party.
Polls suggest that turnout could be a factor, with voter fatigue looming. As of 6 p.m., 56.8% of eligible voters had cast ballots, down from 60.7% in the April 28 election.
