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Supporters of the far-right party Vox in front of the party's headquarters in Madrid on November 10, 2019. OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP

Socialists of the PSOE win the elections, but do not obtain an absolute majority. The extreme right party VOX doubles its score in April and becomes the country's third largest political force.

Outgoing Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrived on Sunday in the lead but did not improve his chances of governing. After counting 95% of the ballots, the Socialist Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sanchez, who hoped to obtain a clear majority to end the political blockage, has only 120 MPs against 123 after the previous election in April.

The second most voted party is the PP, which improves its score compared to the last election in April. The conservatives of the Popular Party won 87 seats, compared with 66 in the April legislative elections.

The party of the extreme right Vox, founded five years ago, comes third, and doubles its number of seats in Parliament. Vox gets 52 seats, up from 24 in previous elections in April. Vox would have benefited from the turmoil sparked by the crisis in Catalonia that dominated the campaign marked by several nights of violence following the condemnation in mid-October of nine independence leaders to heavy prison terms for the secession attempt of 2017.

During the campaign, the Socialist Pedro Sanchez tried to mobilize his electorate against the rise of Vox, which he presented as a return of Francoism, denouncing the right that has not hesitated to ally with this party to take the control of Andalusia, the most populous region of Spain, the region of Madrid, the richest, and the mayor of the capital. He does not seem to have been heard.

The formation of a government promises to be complicated, because neither a left bloc nor an alliance of the rights reach the absolute majority of 176 seats out of 350.