1st LD Writethru: Spain's People's Party wins most seats in general election but falls short of majority: exit poll

The People's Party (PP) of Spain's acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has won most seats in the country's general election on Sunday but fell short of a majority, an exit poll has showed.

The poll, published by the Spanish national TV network RTVE, predicts the PP will win between 117 to 121 seats in the 350-seat Congress with 28.4 percent of the votes, a drop of 0.3 percent compared with the number of votes it garnered in the previous election on December 20, 2015.

The true winner of the day is left-wing formation Udimos-Podemos, which took 25.6 percent of the votes to claim between 91 to 95 seats, an increase of over 20 seats compared with that of the previous election, according to the exit poll.

Unidos Podemos would overtake the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) as Spain's second party with the PSOE winning 21.9 percent of the votes, or between 81 to 85 seats.

Should the exit poll be correct, it would open the door to a "progressive" coalition between Unidos-Podemos and the PSOE, a result that Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias favors.

Center-right party Ciudadanos saw the percentage of its votes drop to below 12 percent.

The RTVE result was slightly different from that carried out by GAD 3 which believed the PP would perform better to claim between 121 to 124 seats, while Unidos Podemos claimed between 87 to 89 seats, the PSOE 84-86 and Ciudadanos between 29 to 32 seats. Endit