Spain's governing centre-left Socialists have won the country's election but must seek backing from smaller parties to maintain power, while a far-right party rode an unprecedented surge of support to enter the lower house of Parliament for the first time in four decades.
With 99 per cent of ballots counted, the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won 29 per cent of the vote, capturing 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies. The new far-right Vox party made its national breakthrough by capturing 10 per cent of the vote, which would give it 24 seats.
Sanchez announced that he would soon open talks with other political parties, telling crowds gathered at the gates of his party headquarters in central Madrid that "the future has won and the past has lost". He hinted at a preference for a left-wing governing alliance but also sent a warning to Catalan separatists whose support he may need that any post-electoral pact must respect the country's 1978 constitution, which bans regions from seceding.
"The only condition is to respect the constitution, move toward social justice, coexistence and political cleanliness," Sanchez said of his criteria for working with other parties.
The success of Vox came at the expense of the once-dominant conservative Popular Party, which fell to 66 seats, losing more than half of its representation since the last election in 2016. The conservatives lost votes both to Vox and to the centre-right Citizens party, which will increase its number of seats from 32 to 57.
