Spain’s PM claims right to form govt. after election win

Spain's acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he has the right to form the government after his ruling conservative party won the most seats in general elections.

Rajoy’s People’s Party won 137 seats in the 350-member parliament in Sunday’s elections, the second in six months, but fell short of a majority.

“We won and we demand the right to govern,” Rajoy told hundreds of cheering supporters at a victory rally in the capital Madrid on Sunday evening.

Spain's other main party, the Socialist PSOE, is in second place with 85 seats.

The left-wing Unidos Podemos (“Together We Can”), a coalition led by anti-austerity party Podemos, came third with 71 seats while the center-right Ciudadanos finished fourth by winning 32 seats.

Despite having the highest number of seats, the PP still needs the support of other parties to establish a coalition or minority government.

No single party won enough votes to form a majority government in elections in December last year and the political parties that won seats in the parliament failed to form a coalition.

Following a six-month power struggle, the parties have vowed to quickly reach a coalition this time, but the results hint at a similar stalemate as the Socialists have said they would not back a government led by Podemos or the PP.

Span’s best-selling newspaper El Pais, which is traditionally close to the Socialists, urged the party in an editorial on Monday to allow the PP to govern.

“To facilitate the formation of a government, the Socialists should listen to the mandate of voters that it remain in the opposition and allow the party that has the necessary votes to govern to do so,” the newspaper wrote.

The vote came only two days after the surprise results of a referendum in Britain, where people voted to leave the European Union. The Brexit vote has added to the uncertainty of Spain’s political landscape following the elections as well.

Spain’s left-wing groups argued that the PP, under Rajoy, had been discredited because of austerity and the chronic unemployment that has plagued Spain since the 2008 financial crisis.

The PP, however, says Spain's improved economic performance is proof that its policies have worked.

According to the latest data from Spain’s central bank, gross domestic product expanded 0.7 percent in the first three months of this year and 2.9 percent on an annualized basis.

Economic growth was only a fraction below the rate seen in the previous quarter, putting the country on course to expand 2.7 per cent this year.

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