The Spaniards left their country’s future on hold after last Sunday’s general electionin which neither the right nor the left bloc obtained a sufficient majority to govern, Therefore, the pacts will play a fundamental role in both cases.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) was the winner with 136 deputies, receiving more than 99% of the vote, while the socialists of the PSOE of the now acting president of the government, Pedro Sanchez122 seats added.

Santiago Abascal’s far-right Vox formation lost 19 seats in this election and was left with 33 deputies in Congresswhile Sumar, the left-wing coalition led by the government’s second vice president and labor minister, Yolanda Díaz, is in fourth place with 31 seats, four fewer than its predecessors, United We Can, in the previous election.

With these results, neither of the two blocs left and right would add the absolute majority set at 176 seats in Spain.

Under the Catalan independence forces, the ERC suffered a serious setback, dropping from 13 to 7 representatives, Junts per Catalunya losing one and being left with six, while EH-Bildu’s Basque independents surpassed the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) for the first time. by six deputies to five.

Despite this decline, these formations can continue to hold the key to government formation.

Participation in these elections was 70.18 percentalmost 4 points more than the figures recorded in the November 10, 2019 general election, when it was 66.23 percent according to official data.

An increase in which mail-in voting hit 2.4 million voters, a historic figure in Spanish democracy fueled by the holiday season when these elections were called.

The PP moves forward and the PSOE resists

The PP won 47 more seats this Sunday than in the 2019 election and confirmed the upward trend of the Conservatives since the municipal and regional elections last May 28when Núñez Feijóo’s formation took over traditional socialist fiefdoms and also won absolute majorities in the Madrid City Council and the regional government.

That was the trigger for the advance of the general elections, scheduled for the end of the year, announced by Sánchez the day after the elections in May.

“I take the lead to form a government in accordance with the will of the majority of the Spanish people and I ask that no one be tempted to block Spain again,” said Núñez Feijóo, claiming that “it is for him to try” to form a government while being cheered by his supporters. “All the candidates with the most votes have ruled,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, against all odds, the PSOE withstood the attack from the right and added two more deputies than in the 2019 general election.

The right had pitched this election as a dispute between “el Sanchismo” or Spain’s change of course, something that ultimately remains up in the air.

“There are more, many more of us who want Spain to move forward, and it will continue to do so”, Pedro Sánchez affirmed before followers gathered at the doors of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid, telling him that his intention is to continue to rule in Spain.

The return of duality

The two-party system, epitomized by the PP and the PSOE, gained momentum in these elections and it achieved its best result in a decade after several elections in which the invasion of new parties such as Podemos (left), Ciudadanos (liberals) and Vox had led it to its worst numbers since the beginning of democracy.

Of these forces, Ciudadanos disappeared from the electoral map, radically changing the political scenario and pushing this strengthening of bipartisanship, along with the sharp fall of Vox, which left 19 deputies this Sunday.

The changes took place not only on the right, but also on the left.

The political space of Unidas Podemos, now within the Sumar platform, has lost more than half of its seats since 2016, when the party, then led by Pablo Iglesias, managed to gain 71 deputies in the Spanish Congress.

In addition, the radical left independence formation CUP and the party Teruel Existe, the only representative of the so-called empty Spain, disappeared from the political scene during these elections.