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Madrid elections: Right-wing opposition to increase seats in regional assembly


Residents in Madrid voted overwhelmingly to reelect their regional assembly, giving the right-wing opposition the most seats, according to partial results.

 

With 70% of the ballots counted, the Popular Party had 64 seats out of 136 in the regional assembly, doubling their seats from the last regional election but short of an outright majority of 69 seats.

 

A poll conducted before the vote for Spanish national television and made public at 20:00 CEST had also showed the right-wing Popular Party doubling its number of deputies in the outgoing assembly.

 

Conservative regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP) had hoped to remain in power and strengthen her position. She called the election after their coalition with the liberal Cuidadanos party collapsed two years into their mandate.

 

It's also a blow for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as Ayuso had been a vocal critic of his pandemic restrictions. With 26 seats, the Socialist Party lost 11, according to partial results.

 

Residents in Madrid voted overwhelmingly to reelect their regional assembly, giving the right-wing opposition the most seats, according to partial results.

 

With 70% of the ballots counted, the Popular Party had 64 seats out of 136 in the regional assembly, doubling their seats from the last regional election but short of an outright majority of 69 seats.

 

A poll conducted before the vote for Spanish national television and made public at 20:00 CEST had also showed the right-wing Popular Party doubling its number of deputies in the outgoing assembly.

 

Conservative regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP) had hoped to remain in power and strengthen her position. She called the election after their coalition with the liberal Cuidadanos party collapsed two years into their mandate.

 

It's also a blow for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as Ayuso had been a vocal critic of his pandemic restrictions. With 26 seats, the Socialist Party lost 11, according to partial results.

 

Falling short of an outright majority, the Popular Party could turn to the far-right Vox party to join a coalition and play a decisive role in the Spanish capital.

 

An hour before the polls were expected to close, turnout was already over 69%, an increase of more than 11 points compared to the previous May 2019 vote.

 

It was also the first election in Madrid since the beginning of the pandemic.

 

Madrid has the worst toll of the country's 17 regions with some 15,000 deaths o

 

ut of a total of 78,000 for all of Spain and nearly 700,000 cases out of a total of 3.5 million.

 

Strict sanitary measures had been put in place at the polling stations, where voters were given a second mask that they had to put on the one they already wore when arriving.

 

 

 

Source: Euronews

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