Roundup: Day of reflection ahead of historic Spanish vote

Saturday is a day of reflection in which no campaigning is allowed by law ahead of the Spanish general election on Sunday which will determine who governs the country for the next 4 years.

36,510,952 Spaniards have the right to vote on Sunday, 731,461 more than in the November 2011 election which saw the ruling Popular Party (PP) win 10,866,566 votes (44.64 percent) to claim 186 seats in the 350 seat Spanish Congress.

They were followed by the Socialist Party, who won 110 seats after claiming 7,003,511 votes (28.76 percent of the share) in what was their worst election performance since the return of democracy at the end of 1975.

Neither of the two major parties can expect to poll anywhere near as many votes as they did in November 2011 after four years which have changed Spain's political landscape.

For the first time in 40 years the PP and PSOE two-party system is being challenged by the rise of the left wing Podemos - literally 'We Can' in English, and Ciudadanos - the Citizens, a center-right party which was formed in the Catalan region to give an alternative to the pro-independence movement, but which moved onto the national stage two years ago.

With the elections taking place against the backdrop of an improving economy, the logical thing would be Mariano Rajoy's PP to retain power and indeed the last published opinion polls place them ahead of the other three parties.

However, the PP's image has been tarnished by a series of high-profile corruption scandals, while the effects of the economic recovery have yet to be felt by the majority of people in a nation where unemployment is still over 20 percent.

Meanwhile the PSOE, who have had their own corruption problems, have failed to inspire or unite opposition to the PP, possibly because they are still blamed by many for the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 and are not yet trusted on economic matters.

That has allowed the charismatic Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias and Citizens' Albert Rivera to find support among voters looking for a different solution to what many see as a stale two-party system and Podemos and Citizens are competing with the Socialists to finish second.

With four parties each sharing the vote, Sunday looks certain to lead to a coalition government.

The last polls gave the PP between 28-26 percent of the vote and it looks certain Rajoy will have to form pacts with another party in order to govern, although with the PSOE and Citizens appearing to rule that out (although Citizens would abstain in the investiture vote to allow Rajoy to remain Prime Minister), it is not certain who he could form a pact with.

Meanwhile with a large percent of voters said to have been decided going into the last week of campaigning, it is still possible that Sunday could see a surprise along the lines of what happened in the UK earlier this year when David Cameron's Conservative party won a majority which no opinion poll had come close to predicting. Endit