The polling stations closed at 20:00. The election day poll, which was published shortly after, shows that the right-wing party is currently likely to do the best, but the election day poll shows no clear lead for any of the blocs. The right-wing party PP is making strong progress and is set to become the largest party with 34.2 percent of the vote, according to RTVE. That is 5.3 percentage points more than Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s party PSOE. The big question in the Spanish election is how many votes the far-right party Vox will get. According to the poll on election day, the party falls back almost four percentage points and is likely to lose almost half of the seats in the National Assembly. Voter turnout currently appears to be lower than at the previous election. At 18.00 on Sunday evening, 53 per cent of those entitled to vote had voted. This is a significant decrease from the 2019 election. Then 56.85% had voted when the clock passed 18. A woman votes in a polling station in Pamplona. Photo: Alvaro Barrientos / AP Many of the voters show their position with a “pulsera”, writes the BBC. This is a colored ribbon they tie around the wrist. Yellow and red, the colors of the Spanish flag, are a signal that one belongs to the right. Rainbow colors stand for LGBT+ people’s rights, and are also a symbol of the left. The leading candidates: Pedro Sanchéz, Yolanda Diaz, Alberto Nunez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal. Photo: Juan Medina/Violeta Santos Moura/Juan Medina/Jon Nazca / Reuters Call for new elections in May The government in Spain was supposed to be in power for another five months. But Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez dissolved the National Assembly and called new elections in May. By then, his socialist party PSOE had lost in a number of important cities, such as Madrid and Valencia. Now many believe that the parties on the right can take power in the country. According to opinion polls, they are most likely to get the most support. As in the rest of Europe, people in Spain have received worse advice recently. Photo: ANDREA COMAS / Reuters First librarian at the University of Oslo, Jose Maria Izquierdo, believes that much has improved in Spain under Sanchez’s rule. – The Working Environment Act changed the whole of working life in Spain. It has managed to halve unemployment in Spain in just two years. Izquierdo believes that the progress Spain has seen recently will be turned upside down with Vox in government. Photo: Tom Balgaard/news He also says that the country’s economy is generally going well, but that ordinary Spaniards have been given worse advice. – If we compare the situation in Spain with countries such as France, Italy, Portugal and even Germany, the situation for the Spanish is much better. – But of course, if you go to the shop to buy food, you don’t think that the Italians are in a worse situation. Far-right party may gain key role The largest conservative party in Spain is the Partido Popular (PP). But if the PP is to take power in Spain, they will by all accounts be dependent on the support of the far-right party Vox. When millions of Spaniards put their votes in the ballot boxes today, there is therefore great excitement attached to Vox’s result as well. At the start of the weekend, they looked set to become the third largest party in the country. Søreng-Wold at the Department of Foreign Languages, UiB. Alejandro Søreng-Wold is a doctoral student at the University of Bergen, and has attended several of Vox’s election meetings recently. – In a global context, one can look to today’s Hungary and Poland, what we call illiberal democracy, as a kind of role model for Vox. – Accusations of fascism are often used when describing Vox, but the party is not explicitly fascist. Vox is a classic populist party, says Søreng-Wold. Photo: THOMAS COEX / AFP – A classic populist party Søreng-Wold believes that Vox are so popular because they have “simple solutions to very complicated problems”. – They are a classic populist party, and when there is a large proportion of the population who are dissatisfied, simple solutions have broad appeal. – Many neighborhoods in Spain are characterized by gang crime and people becoming unsafe. Then this is popular with providing additional funding to the police, and also restrictions in immigration policy. Søreng-Wold says many Spaniards end up on the streets because of the high cost of living in the country. Photo: THOMAS COEX / AFP He says he looks at this development with “quite a lot of concern”. – I see an increasing proportion of people sleeping on mattresses in well-renovated streets in Madrid. – Despite the socialists’ attempts to reduce electricity prices in Spain, there are still families who have to choose between buying food and paying the electricity bill. I think these will be hit pretty hard if the right wins. If Vox ends up in government, it will be the first time Spain has been governed by a nationalist far-right party since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
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The votes are counted in Spain – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
