Conservative party win Spain’s election but have less stellar victory than predicted

MADRID — Spain’s conservative Popular Party was set to narrowly win the country’s national election Sunday but without the majority needed to topple the coalition government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

With 90% of votes counted, PP was is on course to secure 136 of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish parliament. Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers Party was poised to take 122 seats, two more it had the outgoing legislature.

Although the Socialists can likely call on the predicted 31 seats of the left-wing Sumar (Joining Forces) alliance and several smaller parties to assemble more than the sum of Spain’s right-wing parties, there was a real possibility that neither side would be able to secure a majority.

Pre-election polls had predicted a bigger victory for the PP and the possibility for it to form a coalition with the far-right Vox party.

The close election is likely to produce weeks of political jockeying. The next prime minister only would be voted on once lawmakers are installed in the new Congress of Deputies.