Spaniards vote in unpredictable national election

Rivera and Garzon were the only main party leaders to cast their votes outside of the capital of Madrid, with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy voting in the Bernadette College at 10:55 and UPyD’s Andres Herzog at around 10:45.

Political science professor Pablo Iglesias and his radical left Podemos party want to break the mold of Spanish politics.

“We have had many years of bipartisanship – it’s time to renew politics”, said 53-year-old, grey-bearded truck driver Francisco Perez, after voting for Podemos in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

Ciudadanos has the eloquent, media-savvy Albert Rivera as its leader.

Spain’s governing conservative party has won the most seats in the general election but will fall short of an overall majority, exit polls suggest.

A man casts his vote for the Spanish Senate, at a polling station for the national elections, in Pam …

The Socialist party (PSOE) scored 20.5 percent of the vote while upstart centrists Ciudadanos got 15.2 percent, according to the poll.

The Socialists are expected to come second, while anti-austerity party Podemos (“We Can”) and a second significant newcomer, the liberal Ciudadanos (“Citizens”), are vying for third place as kingmaker in post-election talks.

Polls predict that Rajoy’s ruling Popular Party (PP) will win the largest share of the vote but without the absolute majority it needs, which will force it to form an uneasy alliance with another political grouping or rule as a minority government.

MADRID (AP) — The latest developments on Spain’s general election.

Podemos has eaten away support for the center-left Socialists, threatening to end the two-party dominance for decades of the Popular Party and the Socialist Party.

While Rajoy’s government has already passed the 2016 budget and a combination of low interest rates and cheap oil should help underpin economic growth, soothing any market concerns over political instability, prolonged deadlock in Madrid could be used by pro-independence Catalan parties to press their cause. Other parties favor negotiations to devolve more power to Catalonia.

After casting his ballot in a Barcelona suburb, Rivera said the election marks the start of a new era – especially for young Spaniards like him born after the nation’s 1939-1975 dictatorship.

Pedro Sanchez, a 43-year-old former university economics professor, was unknown to most Spaniards until he was elected leader last year of the Socialists.

Analysts, most of whom have portrayed this election as the second leg of Spain’s unfinished transition to democracy 40 years ago, had expected a high turnout on Sunday.