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Roundup: New elections promise similar results in Spain: poll

Xinhua, May 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Spanish general election on June 26 is likely to produce a result similar to the indecisive vote held on Dec. 20 last year, a key opinion poll published in Spain on Monday revealed.

The poll, conducted by Metroscope for El Pais newspaper, implies Spain will again be left with a hung parliament, which is what happened in December when the country's major parties failed to reach an agreement over the formation of a coalition government, leading to the call of fresh elections.

With just over a month before the forthcoming election, acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) is predicted to win 29.9 percent of the votes, 1.2 percent up from December.

This does not necessarily mean the PP will win more votes, but with Metroscope basing its predictions on a turnout of just 68 percent, (five percent down on Dec. 20), the PP will benefit as its voters are more loyal than those of other parties and can be trusted to vote in any circumstances.

Metroscore does predict changes in the composition of the opposition vote with the left-wing alliance (Unidos Podemos) of Podemos and United Left (IU) expected to win 23.3 percent of votes, while support for Pedro Sanchez's PSOE drops to 20.2 percent, 1.8 percent down from six months ago.

However, the Spanish electoral system, which tends to favor the more established parties, could mean that despite polling fewer votes, the PSOE could still win more seats in Congress than Unidos Podemos.

This would be significant if Rajoy were once again unable to find the support to form a government and King Felipe VI had to ask another party leader to try and reach agreement on a coalition, because while Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has made it clear he would look for a pact with the PSOE, Sanchez preferred to sign a pact with center-right party Citizens following the last election.

The poll predicts Citizens will win 15.5 percent in June, but that would probably not allow a PP-Citizens or a PSOE-Citizens alliance to reach a majority of 176 seats in the 350-seat Congress.

Meanwhile, a PSOE-Unidos Podemos pact would also fall short of that number, meaning Spaniards can prepare for further months of political uncertainty over the summer unless the next four weeks see a significant change in voter intentions. Endit