Spaniards head to polls in repeat general elections

People are heading to the polling stations in Spain for the second general elections in six months to pick a new government.

Polls opened on Sunday at 0700 GMT and will close at 1800 GMT. Some 36 million people are eligible to cast their ballots in the elections.

No single party won enough votes to form a majority government in elections in December last year and the political parties that won seats in the parliament failed to form a coalition.

The conservative Popular Party (PP) led by acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took most of the votes in the December elections but could not win the 176 out of the 350 seats needed to secure a majority.

Opinion polls suggest that the repeat elections will also have ambivalent results and that the PP will once again come first without a majority, followed by on-the-rise far-left party the Unidos Podemos.

The center-left Socialists are anticipated to come in third and centrist Ciudadanos to take the fourth position.

The vote came only two days after the surprise results of a referendum in Britain, where people voted to leave the European Union (EU). The Brexit vote has added to the uncertainty of Spain’s political landscape following the elections as well.

The PP insisted on the need for “stability” in Spain in face of “radicalism” and “populism,” in an indirect reference to Unidos Podemos, which has been critical of EU-backed austerity measures in Spain.

“If you want a united country and not a radical Spain, think about it, go for what is safe ... vote for the Popular Party,” Rajoy wrote on Twitter.

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