A jubilant Pedro Sanchez addressed supporters in the early hours of Monday morning after his Socialist Party PSOE won the Spanish Elections.
With all but a few thousand votes counted, results showed Sanchez gained the most with 123 seats but fell well short of a majority (176 seats).
The right-wing mainstream conservative PP party were cut down to 66 seats, with centre-right Ciudadanos at 57 seats and far-right Vox at 24 seats.Far-left Unidas Podemos won 35 seats.
The left-wing bloc (Socialists and Podemos), with 157 seats altogether, currently seems to be in a better position to form a government than the right-wing bloc (Popular Party, Ciudadanos and Vox) at 146 seats.
Speaking to reporters after partial results were announced, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said his party and the Socialists had “the willingness to work together in a coalition government.”
In order to remain in power, Sanchez would have to form an alliance not just with left-wing Podemos but with at least one separatist party from Catalonia.
Sanchez said he would seek to form a pro-European government and his only condition for forming a government would be respecting the Constitution and promoting social justice.
‘We will form a pro-European government to strengthen Europe, not to weaken it,” he said.
Far-right to sit in parliament
Far-right group Vox was set to become the first party of its political hue to sit in Spain’s parliament since 1982.
“This is just the beginning, “Vox leader Santiago Abascal Conde said after first results were announced. “We’re just starting what we’re going to do. We have a voice in Congress,” Conde continued, “a voice that didn’t exist before. ”
He promised Vox’s 24 MPs would “not allow Barcelona nor Brussels to split us,” “defend the right to life” as well as “the interests of rural Spain.”
Euronews’ Carols Marlasca is at the Vox headquarters and said people were celebrating.
Results also highlight how Vox has siphoned votes from the conservative Popular Party, which was projected to lose dozens of seats in the next parliament.euronews