Econintersect: With almost all the votes counted in the election of November 20 (Sunday), the conservative Popular Party has an even wider margin of victory than reported earlier by GEI News based on projections from exit polls. The outgoing Socialist Party government has been handed their worst defeat in history, with history starting in 1975 with the end of the Franco dictatorship.
Polls earlier this month indicated the PP would win more than 45% of the vote. The Socialist Party (SP), which has ruled since 2004, had been projected in those polls to get about 30% of the vote. The final tally appears to be coming in about 44% of the popular vote for the PP and 29% for the SP, extremely close to the opinion polling results two weeks ago. The final count of lower house of parliament seats for the PP is 186 seats (out of 350), with the SP being cut to their lowest total since 1977, 110 seats. With control of 53% of the parliament votes it is expected that PP leader Mariano Rajoy will have no trouble as the new president, even though he only got 44% of the vote.
An interesting curiosity is that, in spite of the conservative landslide, the small United Left party increased their strength, going from two to eleven seats in parliament. (USA Today)
The rough road ahead for the new government and for the Spanish people was discussed in the earlier GEI News report.
