PSOE would make smaller gains
A new Sociométrica poll for El Español at the weekend suggested a drop of 40 seats for the governing Popular Party at a new general election. Mariano Rajoy’s party currently holds 137 seats in Congress, but the new poll predicts only 97.
The biggest winner would be Ciudadanos, led by Albert Rivera, whose share of the total would rise from the party’s current 32 seats up to 86, a rise of 54.
Such a large shift on the Spanish right would place three parties—the PP, Ciudadanos and the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)—on an approximately equal footing in parliament, with between 22.5% and 24.1% of the vote each.
The PSOE, led by Pedro Sánchez, is forecast to make smaller gains, up from its current 85 seats to 89.
The second-biggest loser in the poll, after the governing Popular Party, would be Pablo Iglesias’s Podemos, which is predicted to drop from 71 seats to 49—when taking into account the regional branches of the party—a fall of 22.