The Socialist Party of Spain, led by outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, led the early legislative elections on Sunday, winning 120 seats, according to official results announced by the Spanish Interior Ministry.

The Popular Party came in second with 88 seats, while the far-right Fox party came third with 52.

This electoral victory will not allow the Socialists to rule alone, and will have to seek support in the new parliament, whose number has increased as a result of the political divide prevailing in the country and has seen an unprecedented rise of the extreme right since the beginning of the Spanish era of democracy.

The Spanish voted on Sunday for the fourth time in four years, amid a climate weighed down by the crisis in Catalonia and the rise of the extreme right, which calls for hardening over the separatism of the region.

Six months after a legislative election he won without an absolute majority, Sanchez called on 37 million voters to give him a clear mandate to end political instability.

Voters were invited to vote after Sanchez failed to form a government in the hope that the election would break the political deadlock in the country for years.

Spain has been plagued by instability in governments since 2015, when new parties were born out of the financial crisis, after decades in which the Socialists and the conservative Popular Party alternated power.