Since 2015 Spanish elections have usually come in pairs. One party wins, but cannot or will not form a government with the numbers in parliament. They go back to the voters, and we get a repeat that, hopefully, produces a more decisive result. This is again the most likely outcome from Spain’s elections on 23 July. Without a clear path to a majority on either side, no one is sure who will govern the country.
As was expected before the elections, Alberto Núñez Feijóo and his centre-right People's Party (PP) finished first overall. But with 136 seats in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of Spain’s parliament, it has nowhere near the 176 required to win a majority. Short of a grand coalition, which neither the PP nor Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists would seriously contemplate, the only governing partner for the PP is the far-right Vox. This, however, means not being able to count on much support from regionalist parties.