Spain’s Partido Popular (PP) looked set to have won the European Parliament elections in the country with 32.4 per cent of the vote, according to exit polls.
On June 9, the centre-right party led by Alberto Feijóo and part of the European People’s Party in the EP, was expected to have gained 22 of the 61 seats Spain has in the EP, nine more MEPs than in 2019.
The Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), of the EP’s Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), led by Spain’s current Deputy Prime Minister and European Commissioner hopeful Teresa Ribera, was predicted to come second.
With 30.2 per cent of the vote, the Spanish Socialists looked set to lose one MEP, leaving them with a total of 20 seats.
The polls suggested the Conservative Party VOX, of the EP’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which currently has four MEPs, would increase its parliamentary share with three more MEPs, including Jorge Martín Frías, the director of VOX’s influential think-tank, Fundación Disenso.
With a predicted 10.4 per cent of the vote, VOX would become Spain’s third-largest political force in the European Parliament, replacing the now-extinct liberal Ciudadanos (Citizens’) party.
The progressive parties of SUMAR and Podemos, which support Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, would chalk-up six MEPs with 10 per cent of the vote, according to the polls.
While the Spanish right-wing forces looked likely to win more MEPs than the left-wing parties, the differences appeared not as dramatic as some polls had predicted, with some giving the PP a 10-point advantage over the PSOE.
Under the exit survey, Carles Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya party was left with one MEP, two short of its 2019 tally.
Puigdemont, who ran for Catalonia’s regional elections in May, chose not to stand in this year’s European Parliament elections.
Se acabó la fiesta (SALF), a new party led by social influencer and activist Luis “Alvise” Pérez, was predicted to have obtained almost 4 per cent of the vote and two MPs.
According to Sánchez, together with the PP and VOX, SALF was one of the “three lists of the international far-right” for the EP elections.
Spain, a pro-European country across the political spectrum, saw its participation among the 38 million eligible to vote fall more than 11 points, according to sources.
