Follow our live coverage of election day in Spain, where voters are going to the polls for the fourth time since 2015. Around 37 million citizens are being asked to elect 350 members of Congress and 208 senators in an election that surveys show is likely to yield a fractured parliament.
At 6pm, voter turnout was at 56.8%, which is nearly four points down on the same figure at the inconclusive April 28 general election: 60.7%. This figure corresponds to 99.2% of polling stations, which accounts for 99.3% of the electorate.
“Let us strengthen democracy through our votes,” said Pedro Sánchez, the caretaker prime minister, as he cast his vote on Sunday morning.
“We will reach out to the Socialist Party [PSOE]. Any reproaches are a thing of the past,” said Pablo Iglesias, head of the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos, who unsuccessfully attempted to craft a governing coalition with Sánchez after the previous general election of April 28.
Since 2017, Spanish politics has been defined by a lack of parliamentary majorities and the inability of politicians to reach governing deals. Surveys suggest that the outcome of today’s vote will be an even more fractured lower house, with less of a difference between the left- and right-wing blocs. The far right is also expected to make significant gains.
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Alicia Kember
According to the latest data, voter turnout at 6pm has fallen the most in the Balearic Islands where it is at 47.4%, seven points down compared to the same figure at the general election in April (54.4%).
BREAKING NEWS | Voter turnout at 6pm at the Spanish general election today is at 56.8%, which is four points down on the same figure at the April 28 polls (60.74%). The participation figure is from 94.9% of voting stations, which account for 95.2% of the electorate.
Pablo Echenique, a Congressional candidate for Unidas Podemos, writes today: “Until 8pm your vote is worth the same as that of Ana Patricia Botín, Florentino Pérez or the president of the CEOE,” in reference to the chairman of Spanish lender Santander, the president of Real Madrid soccer club and the head of Spain’s biggest business association.
The leader of far-right party Vox, Santiago Abascal, tweets: “Today I have been able to exercise the right to vote amid the affection of the people and with the hope that Spaniards choose the paths of unity, freedom and harmony #SpainForever”
https://twitter.com/Santi_ABASCAL/status/1193565070602715141
A man has been arrested at a voting station in Tarragona in possession of a pistol and a knife. The local police in Amposta detained the 70-year-old, who reportedly does not have a criminal record and did not engage in any violent behavior. “He is currently under arrest and now we will have to find out where he got the firearm from and what he was planning to do,” the mayor of Amposta, Adam Tomas, told EL PAÍS. Reporting by Alfonso L. Congostrina.
The president of a voting station in Ourense turned up late for his duties today – because his dog had apparently eaten his national identity card (DNI). In the end, the polling booth he was supposed to be manning was taken over by a stand-in. (EFE)
EL PAÍS data expert Kiko Llaneras has analyzed a wealth of information, including the results of 27 elections in Spain, and has come up with six possible surprises that we could see in today’s Spanish elections:
1. Far-right party Vox could improve considerably on the result it managed at the April poll.
2. Right wing parties in general – PP, Ciudadanos, Vox, Navarra Suma – could end up with more seats than the leftist parties (Socialists, Unidas Podemos, Más País).
3. Vox loses support, but Ciudadanos – widely expected to tank today – holds on.
4. The left does much better than expected, with the PSOE taking 29%, Unidas Podemos 13.3% and Más País 3.8%.
5. The PP ends up with a strong recovery, after having seen its worst result ever in April after shifting to the right.
6. There are no surprises: the polls are right, and the status quo from the April vote remains, with – so far elusive – deals needing to be done.
Gabriel Rufián, the spokesperson for the Catalan Republican Left in Congress, has apologized on Twitter to anyone who may have been offended by the photos in this tweet. In the images, Rufián – whose party is in favor of Catalan independence – posed with an election official for far-right party Vox, which wants to outlaw parties such as Rufián’s. “I have never said no to a photo with anyone, but I understand that these [pictures] could bother people,” he wrote.
https://twitter.com/gabrielrufian/status/1193551336966688768
The results of the vote will be known at around 10.30pm, when the acting government spokeswoman, Isabel Celaá, and the acting interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska are scheduled to give a news conference at the data control center in Madrid. The vote count will begin at 8pm, and exit polls will be released around that time as well.
Voters from the working-class neighborhood of Simancas in Madrid say that the mood today is different from April 28, when Spain held another general election. Back then, there were many more people at the Carmen Cabezuelo polling station, recalls Tomás Fernández, a retired worker who voted for the Socialist Party (PSOE). “Many people have taken this vote as a joke, because they feel that nothing’s going to change.” Reporting by Fernando Peinado.
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“Today is a very important day for Spanish democracy: the spotlight is on the citizens, who have to go vote today. We need: for the center ground to get broader so the extremes will NOT win; to unite Spaniards; to get #EspañaEnMarcha (Spain On The Move),” said Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera, whose party stands to be the big loser of the repeat election: surveys show that it could slip from third to fifth place and retain no more than 14 seats in Congress (it currently has 57).
How will the weather influence turnout today? This Sunday is proving to be the coldest day so far since autumn officially began. There are alerts for adverse weather conditions in 33 provinces, and readings on thermometers show up to 10ºC below normal for this time of the year in some places.
Tents and signs are still up near the historical building of Barcelona University, a reminder of the street protests that began after the Supreme Court sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to prison over the 2017 breakaway attempt. The ensuing week of violence led authorities to send thousands of police reinforcements to the region to prevent any unrest on election day.
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Unidas Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has thanked all the citizens who were called upon to act as voting officials at polling stations today, as well as the government workers and party representatives who are contributing to the logistics of the vote.
Victoria Rossell, a candidate from Las Palmas (Canary Islands) who is running for Congress with Unidas Podemos, said she is certain that progressive forces will manage an agreement after today’s election. “There are those with an interest in saying we are incapable of sitting down to make deals; this encourages abstention, which in turn favors the far right,” she said. Reporting and photo by Macame Mesa.
At this polling station in Valencia’s Salesians school, Jacqueline is acting as a voting official for the fourth time in her life. “Earlier, in the 1980s, people used to seem happier at elections, both the voters and the party representatives at the polling stations,” she recalls. Reporting and photo by Ferran Bono.
LATEST FIGURES Turnout at 2pm was 37.93%, a 3.56-point drop from the general election of April 28 (41.49%). Policitians have been fearing a lower turnout as a result of voter exhaustion. Surveys show that over 50% of Spaniards believe today’s vote will yield a weak government and could lead to yet another early election.
Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the acting interior minister in Spain’s caretaker government, voted in Madrid “with the same enthusiasm, pride and joy as in other electoral processes.” Voter apathy is a concern in a country where citizens have been through a marathon of national, regional, municipal and European elections this year alone. Photo credit: EFE
Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s far-right party Vox, casts his ballot. Following an editorial published by this newspaper about Vox, the party has announced a ban at party rallies on all journalists working for PRISA Group news outlets, including EL PAÍS.
Teresa Rodríguez, the coordinator general in Andalusia of the anti-austerity party Podemos, said she trusts that “common sense will prevail.” After casting her ballot in the city of Cádiz, Rodriguez confessed that she is both worried and hopeful about the outcome of today’s repeat election. Reporting and photo by Europa Press.
An elderly woman has died after fainting and falling inside a polling station in Vélez de Benaudalla, in the Andalusian province of Granada. Sources at the government delegate’s office in Andalusia reported that the incident took place at 10.30am.
In Terrassa, in Catalonia, there are lines of people waiting to vote at this polling station. The issue of Catalonia has dominated the campaign, and several candidates have visibly adopted a tougher tone on Catalan independence in a bid to win back voters who seem seduced by Vox’s hardline message. Photo credit: Cristóbal Castro
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“A day for hope. A day for freedom. A day for justice. A day for democracy. A day so that not a single vote will remain silent. A day for everyone to vote, vote and vote…” tweeted Ernest Maragall, a veteran politician with the separatist Catalan Republican Left (ERC) who sits in the regional parliament and presides the ERC group in Barcelona City Council.
“Today is the second round of [the previous general election of] April 28 to unblock a stalemate that is already affecting the economic, social and territorial situation. That is why it is essential for Spaniards to come together at the ballox boxes to choose between continuity and change, and to create a clear mandate for stability and a future for Spain,” said Pablo Casado, the candidate for the conservative Popular Party (PP), in a message on Twitter.
“The essential thing is for each person to cast his or her vote thinking about what kind of future they want for the country,” said María Jesús Montero, the finance minister in the caretaker government, after voting in Seville. Montero rejected the notion that this repeat election is providing the far right with a new opportunity to increase its presence in parliament. “During the campaign we presented the alternative to overcome the stalemate imposed by other parties,” she added. With reporting by Eva Sáiz. Photo credit: Alejandro Ruesga
The acting public works minister and organization secretary for the Socialist Party (PSOE), José Luis Ábalos, voted in Valencia with “the same excitement as though I were 30 or 35 years younger,” he said. Speaking in the company of his wife Carolina Perles and their six-year-old son Pablo, Ábalos said it was important to vote “for stability,” Ferran Bono reports. In an interview with EL PAÍS earlier this week, the caretaker PM Pedro Sánchez said that the only way to ensure that Spain gets a government is to vote for the PSOE. Photo credit: Mónica Torres.
Rocío Monasterio, head of the Madrid branch of the far-right party Vox, said she is “very excited” about this election and that she trusts Spaniards will “have the drive to go out and vote to make change happen,” Europa Press reported. Surveys suggest that Vox could nearly double its presence in the lower house, and earn up to 46 seats from the 24 it secured on April 28.
The Basque premier, Iñigo Urkullu, cast his vote this morning in the city of Durango and said he hopes that the election “will end four years of uncertainty” and usher in “a new cycle” that will be “beneficial to Euskadi [the Basque Country].”
Police officers are guarding the National Police headquarters on Via Laietana in Barcelona. There is mobile security fencing and the nearby streets have been blocked off, Laura Cercós reports. Thousands of officers have been deployed in Catalonia this weekend to ensure there is no street violence in the wake of last month’s weeklong rioting.
Voting has been taking place “with just a few absolutely minor incidents to report, which are normal in these kinds of processes,” said Interior Minister deputy secretary Isabel Goicoechea and the secretary of state for communications, Miguel Ángel Oliver, at a news conference at the National Data Center in Madrid. These incidents mostly involve delays opening some polling stations, and a temporary power cut at a polling station in Asturias, the news agency EFE reported.