July 23 (UPI) — Nearly all of the votes have been counted in Spain’s general election on Sunday and no party has won enough seats to establish an outright majority.
The Partido Popular, Spain’s most conservative party, has won 136 seats with 99% of the votes counted, The Guardian reports. A party needs 176 seats in the 350-seat parliament to hold an outright majority and establish a government.
The coalition of Partido Popular and the Vox party are expected to hold 169 seats. The Vox party has suffered some of the biggest losses in the election, dropping from 52 seats to 33.
The July election was called by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez Perez-Castejon in May after his Socialist Workers’ Party lost a number of local and regional elections. The election was previously scheduled to take place in December.
Sanchez’s ruling party is set to win 122 seats and its coalition partner the Sumar party, 31 seats.
“Spain has been crystal clear and resoundingly clear. The involutionist, backward block, which proposed the repeal of the progress made in these four years, has failed,” Sanchez tweeted. “There are many more of us who want Spain to continue advancing. “Thank you very much to you all.”
Though Partido Popular did not win the clear majority it expected, its vote share saw a significant increase from 21% to 33%, CNN reports.
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