Daily Times

A coalition of Spanish right-wing parties – the People’s Party (PP), Ciudadanos and far-right Vox – would fall just shy of a parliamentary majority, an opinion poll ahead of a snap election due on April 28 showed on Monday. On the left, the Socialists (PSOE) would need the support of anti-austerity Podemos and small regional parties for a majority, the poll by GAD3 for the ABC newspaper showed. The poll, conducted Feb. 18-22 with 800 respondents, showed the PSOE as winning the most votes of any one party, 28.9 percent and 122 seats. The PP was on 23.2 percent and 97 seats, Ciudadanos 15.7 percent with 53 seats and Vox with 10.8 percent and 23 seats. A Sigma Dos poll published on Saturday also showed the three-right wing parties would win a small majority, illustrating how fragmented Spain’s political system, long dominated by the PSOE and PP, has become in recent years.

Published in Daily Times, February 26^th 2019.