MADRID: Spain voted on Sunday on whether to hand Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a new four-year mandate or, as polls suggest, return the right to power with its far-right ally.
Ahead of the European Parliament elections in 2024, a rightward shift in the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, mirroring a similar move in Italy last year, would be a huge blow to left-wing parties in Europe.
It would be even more symbolic since Spain currently holds the presidency of the European Union.
Almost all opinion polls and pundits suggest the vote will mean victory for Alberto Nunez Feijoo’s right-wing People’s Party (PP) – but surprises may be in store.
About one in five voters were still undecided when the latest polls were released on Monday, and it remains unclear what impact the timing of the vote, which took place at the height of the summer holidays in sweltering heat at the end of July, will have on turnout.
With many Spaniards on holiday, more than 2.47 million – a record number – of the 37.5 million registered voters cast absentee ballots, Spain’s postal service said on Saturday.
Polling stations open at 9:00 (07:00 GMT) and close at 20:00, with results expected a few hours later.
It was not a good final week of the campaign for the PP leader, who ran afoul of the pensions issue, boycotted the final televised debate between the candidates and resurfaced troubling questions about his links to a now-convicted drug dealer in the 1990s.
Even so, “it would be a huge surprise if the PP didn’t win. But whether it succeeds in forming a government is another matter,” said Pedro Riera Sagrera, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University.
Feijoo hopes his party will reach the magic number of 176 MPs in the 350-member parliament, which would allow it to govern independently, but polls suggest otherwise.
They show that he is unlikely to achieve and will have to make a deal with the only available partner – the far-right party Vox, which emerged in 2013 from a split within the PP.
This poses a real challenge for Feijoo, who has built his reputation on being a moderate but whose party recently struck co-governance deals with Vox in local and regional bodies following the right-wing triumph in regional elections in May.
During the negotiations, Vox refused to back down from controversial positions such as rejecting abortion or trans rights, refusing to recognize gender violence or denying climate change.
Vox chairman Santiago Abascal has warned the PP that it will demand a role in government in exchange for its support, marking the first participation of the far right in a Spanish government since the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975.
Feijoo kept his plans for Vox under wraps, saying in an interview published Friday in El Mundo newspaper that “a candidate shouldn’t say who he’s going to partner with two days before the election.”
A coalition government with Vox “is not ideal,” he added.
Sanchez used the prospect of a PP-Vox national government to try to rally leftist and moderate voters.
During a televised debate on Wednesday, he warned that such a government “will not only be a step backwards for Spain” in terms of rights, “but also a serious obstacle to the European project”.
He says the only alternative is to keep the current coalition government between his Socialists and the far left in power.
The far-left Podemos party – his coalition partner from 2020 – was absorbed this year by Sumar, a new formation led by his hugely popular Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz, a communist.
While the Socialists and Podemos have clashed regularly, Sanchez has a smooth relationship with Diaz.
But Riera said the left-wing coalition’s chances of staying in power were slim and there was a “serious risk” that neither party could secure a workable majority, which could mean a repeat election in a few months.
![NEW YORK: Pakistan's former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, leading Pakistan’s high-level parliamentary delegation, on Tuesday warned that India's aggressive actions pose a serious threat to peace in South Asia and urged the international community to take note of India's aggressive conduct. Bilawal was addressing a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on recent regional developments after the military conflict between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani delegation is in New York to present Pakistan’s stance on the military escalation with India and to challenge New Delhi’s narrative at the global level. The visit is part of Pakistan’s sustained diplomatic outreach to brief key UN stakeholders on the alarming regional situation. The Pakistani delegation is also scheduled to arrive in Washington today, where it plans to engage with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other senior officials, lawmakers, and think tanks till June 6. The team will also visit London and Brussels. Speaking at the press conference, Bilawal said that he wanted to use the opportunity to share Pakistan’s perspective on the recent military conflict with India in the wake of the Pahalgam attack and the way forward. Bilawal said that the “illegal strikes” launched by India as part of its ‘Operation Sindoor’ were “in violation of the UN Charter, international law”. He said the attacks had targeted civilian infrastructure, places of worship, energy infrastructure and innocent women and children. He said India had used the April 22 terrorist attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s (IIOJK) Pahalgam as a pretext to launch the attack inside Pakistan. Following the Pahalgam incident, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered publicly to India that Pakistan was ready to be part of any impartial international investigation into this attack. “We did so because we were confident, our hands were clean and we had nothing to do with this terrorist attack. “We expressed our sympathy with the victims of terrorism and Pakistan has consistently and unequivocally condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” he said, adding that PM Sharif had immediately expressed Pakistan’s willingness to India and the global community to be part of any impartial international investigation. “Indian government refused Pakistan's offer and chose instead to conduct their illegal strikes. Pakistan only then acted in self-defence, we never initiated any violence against India,” Bilawal said. Bilawal emphasised that Pakistan never initiated hostilities against India but responded to Indian aggression by downing six Indian fighter jets. "The Pakistani military had responded with precision the night of the first Indian attack and only targeted and downed six planes because we believed those were the ones to release their load on Pakistan”. He stated that US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio played a vital role in achieving a ceasefire during heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours. “We’ve seen during the course of this conflict how quickly the escalation ladder between our two countries rose and the concern is that the next time there is such an incident, there may not be time for the international community to intervene before things get a lot worse. That is why it is absolutely important for Pakistan and the international community to continue to pursue dialogue and diplomacy as the only viable path to peace.” He said Pakistan’s position was to hold a “comprehensive dialogue” with India that would include the issue of terrorism as well. The head of the Pakistani delegation said that no civilized nation can support the use of water as a weapon and urged the international community to play its part, questioning, "What would be the global reaction if someone’s lifeline was cut off?" He stressed that Pakistan has paid a heavy price in the fight against terrorism and has suffered the most. “The single largest number of terrorist attacks that take place in any one country is Pakistan. The single largest number of victims of terrorism is Pakistan. I myself have suffered at the hands of terrorists. My mother [Benazir Bhutto] was assassinated by the terrorists.” Bilawal also criticised India for targeting water reservoirs and civilian areas, including mosques, during its attacks. Calling negotiations the only path to peace, Bilawal reiterated that the unresolved Kashmir dispute remains the root cause of regional instability. He urged the global community to take notice of India’s aggressive conduct.](https://wenewsenglish.com/storage/2025/06/Bilawal-Bhutto-Zardari-300x180.jpg)
