Spain Teeters

[bobabode]

"MADRID — Polarized Spanish voters handed neither conservatives nor liberals a decisive victory in Sunday’s highly charged elections, setting up a political impasse that could take weeks or months to untangle.

Conservatives had hoped for a comeback in a progressive bastion of Europe with some of the world’s most liberal laws on abortion and transgender rights. But the left led by the So************************ts of photogenic Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — who had called early elections in a risky gambit — overperformed, posting better numbers than projected. Late Sunday, a jubilant, defiant Sánchez addressed supporters in Madrid, who chanted anti-fascist slogans.

“Spain has been clear. The bloc of devolution, of retrocession, that wants to take back all we have achieved, of machismo, has failed,” he said.

In a game of margins, the center-right Popular Party, however, slightly underperformed — coming first in the race and posting big gains, but not quite as much as expected. In a result that could rally European progressives at a time when archconservatives are gaining traction across the continent — the anti-LBGTQ+, anti-feminist climate deniers of the far-right Vox Party also did slightly worse than anticipated, winning just over 12 percent of the vote and losing 19 of their 52 seats.

Vox’s leader Santiago Abascal appeared to acknowledge the challenge facing any right-wing alliance. “We are ready to be on the opposition and for a repetition of the election,” he told supporters late Sunday.

In a quirk of parliamentary systems, they were still only a few seats away from being able to enter government in a possible conservative coalition with the PP. Had they performed even slightly better, Spain would be on the cusp of its farthest right government since the death of its longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. The PP late Sunday said it would not give up.

As the candidate of the most-voted party, I believe it is my duty to open a dialogue to try to govern our country in accordance with the election results, in accordance with the electoral victory,” the PP’s chief, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, declared to supporters at party headquarters in Madrid." WP

continued here - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ns-vox-europe/