(Al Jazeera Media Network) Spain appears headed for a hung parliament after national elections on Sunday left parties on the right and left without a clear path toward forging a new government.
With 99 percent of votes counted by 11:45 p.m. (21:45 GMT) on Sunday, the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP) had 136 seats while Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s ruling Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) had 122 seats.
Parties with the greatest potential to be kingmakers were nearly even with the far-right Vox party on 33 seats and far-left Sumar on 31.
The outcome for Vox, which had campaigned on a platform of rolling back laws on gender violence, LGBTQ rights, abortion and euthanasia, marks a loss of 19 seats from four years earlier.
While Sanchez’s Socialists finished second, they and their allied parties celebrated the outcome as a victory since their combined forces gained slightly more seats than the PP and the far right.
The bloc that would be likely to support Sanchez totalled 172 seats, while the right bloc, behind PP’s leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, was likely at 170.
