Spain Holds General Elections

On Sunday, the Spaniards head to the polls to elect their President, 350 representatives for the Lower House, and 208 Senators.

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The polling stations opened at 9:00 am and will close at 8:00 pm. It is expected that 37.5 million Spaniards will participate in the voting, with 2.3 million of them residing abroad.

In Spain, 1.6 million citizens will be able to participate for the first time in a general election, having reached the age of 18 since the previous voting held in November 2019.

General elections take place every four years unless the President of the Government calls for an early dissolution, as it happens in this occasion.

The fact that these elections coincide with the summer holidays of the Spaniards has led to over 2.4 million citizens voting by mail. This figure constitutes 94.2 percent of the approved requests for this voting method, the highest ratio reached in an election since 2008.

Over 90,000 members of the security forces make up the security operation to ensure that the process proceeds smoothly and without incidents.

In these elections, the conservative bloc led by the People’s Party (PP) and the progressive bloc led by the Socialist Party (PSOE) are competing. During the electoral campaign, both alliances have sought to gather enough support to form the next government of Spain.

If they cannot achieve it on their own, each of the two parties will be forced to try to reach a governing majority by forming a coalition with the far-right party VOX in the case of the PP, and with the left-wing coalition SUMAR in the case of the PSOE.

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