MADRID - Spain is heading for a hung Parliament, with neither the left nor the right able to secure a majority in Sunday’s election, paving the way for drawn-out and potentially fruitless negotiations to form a government.

The centre-right People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox won the most seats in Parliament with a combined 169 – short of the 176 seats needed for a majority and confounding polls predictions.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and far-left Sumar won 153 but have more possibilities for negotiating support from small Basque and Catalan separatist parties, as they did following 2019’s election.

Negotiations by the two blocs to form the government will start after a new Parliament convenes on Aug 17.

King Felipe VI will invite leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo of the PP, the top vote winner, to try to secure the prime ministership. In a similar situation in 2015, PP leader Mariano Rajoy declined the King’s invitation, saying he could not muster the support.

If Mr Feijoo declines, the King may turn to Mr Sanchez with the same request. The law does not set a deadline for the process, but if no candidate secures a majority within two months of the first vote on the prime minister, new elections must be held.

A deadlock or protracted negotiations could distract from Spain’s current presidency of the European Union Council and upset financial markets.

“The Spanish market, like all equity markets, hates ambiguity,” Mr Steve Smith, Invesco European equities fund manager, told Reuters ahead of the vote.

Mr Sanchez called a surprise snap election after the left took a drubbing in local elections in May.

The vote coincided with what would be many Spaniards’ summer holidays and one of the hottest months in the sun-baked nation. Voters showed up in swimsuits and used ballots as fans, while polling stations brought in air-conditioners or moved voting tables outside.

Turnout was up, at 71.31 per cent, compared with 66.23 per cent in the last election in 2019.

Polls in the weeks leading up to voting – and even those released as the final ballot box was sealed at 9pm local time – predicted a working majority for Mr Feijoo’s PP and Vox.

Dr Ignacio Jurado, political science professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University, blamed the PP’s negative campaign against Mr Sanchez for a drop in support and said Mr Sanchez’s abrupt move in calling snap elections might still pay off.

“The PP needed something more, especially because Vox is a hindrance,” he said.

‘Not looking good’

As the results rolled in, a mood of jubilation outside the People’s Party headquarters in central Madrid’s Calle Genova turned anxious as the gap between the PP and PSOE remained stubbornly slim.

Mr Galo Contreras, PP mayor of the nearby town of Burgos, said he was not surprised the race was so close, given missteps by the PP in the past week.

Each seat gained for the PP was loudly celebrated by the crowd of supporters. But one admitted as the night went on: “This isn’t looking good.”

Meanwhile, 2.6km across town at the PSOE headquarters, some senior officials were smiling. A supporter in the corridor said gleefully: “We were dead, but we’re now alive.”

‘Concessions for support’

Mr Feijoo could try to persuade smaller parties to back a PP-Vox coalition. But many appear reluctant to support the ascent of a far-right party into power for the first time since the four-decade rule of dictator Francisco Franco, who died in 1975.

The Basque Nationalist Party said before the election that it had no agreement with PP and Vox, while Teruel Existe told El Pais it would not support such a coalition.

Mr Sanchez has more options for negotiations, but may still struggle to cobble together a majority, with potential allies looking for concessions in return for their support.

In the present scenario, Mr Sanchez’s PSOE would rely heavily on Catalan separatist parties Junts and ERC or Basque separatists E.H. Bildu.

Junts’ Catalan candidate recently said the party would seek a new vote on Catalan independence in return for coalition support, while Junts’ former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has said he would support neither Mr Sanchez nor Mr Feijoo.

Hung Parliaments have become the norm in recent years due to the fragmentation of Spain’s politics and the emergence of new parties challenging the dominance of the PP and the PSOE.

The country held two elections within six months in late 2015 and 2016, after which there was a 10-month stand-off until PSOE finally agreed to abstain from a confidence vote to allow the PP to form a minority government.

In 2019, two more elections were held before the PSOE and far-left Podemos agreed to form Spain’s first coalition government.

Mr Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, director of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Spain was now faced with “a catastrophic tie”. REUTERS