Majority of Spaniards want to see coalition gov't: poll

A poll conducted by the company Metroscope and published in the El Pais newspaper on Sunday, just four weeks after the December 20th general election, showed that a majority of Spaniards want to see their four main political parties work to agree a coalition government rather than see a new general election.

The December 20th vote saw the ruling Peoples' Party (PP) win 123 seats in the 350 seat Congress, while the Socialists PSOE won 90, Podemos 69 and Citizens 40, with the other seats were divided among various Catalan and Basque nationalist parties and other formations.

Congress reconvened on January 13, but if nobody is able to form a stable government in two months, the Spanish Constitution says a new election has to be called - something most Spaniards would rather avoid.

61 percent of those asked said they would rather not have another general election and prefer a coalition, be it PP-PSOE, Citizens or PSOE-Podemos-Citizens, while 33 percent were in favor of a return to the polls.

However, the opinion poll also showed that should there be another general election it would produce a similar result to last month, with the PP seeing support rise slightly from the 28.7 percent of the vote they won on December 20th, to 29 percent.

Left wing Podemos continue the climb in popularity they saw in the election campaign and their share of the vote would rise from 20.7 percent to 22.5 percent, while Citizens would also see their position improve, winning 16.6 percent rather than their election showing of 13.9 percent.

There is worrying news for the PSOE, however: the Socialists are the only major party to see a fall in support over the past 4 weeks, dropping from 22 percent to 21.1, which would mean Podemos would become the main opposition party in a theoretical new vote. Endit