MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s right-wing parties have lost some ground to the ruling left-wing coalition led by the Socialists (PSOE) but remain in the lead ahead of a July 23 national election, according to polls published on Monday.
The conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right party Vox, a potential coalition ally, would still win enough seats for an absolute majority in the 350-member lower house, two polls released on Monday showed. However a third survey found they would fall short of an absolute majority.
The PP has led in polls since Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a surprise snap election on May 29 after his party and its junior coalition partner Podemos performed poorly in regional and municipal ballots. All polls have found the PP would need support from Vox to form a government.
However, the right-wing parties’ margin over PSOE and Sumar, the new far-left grouping which includes Podemos, has shrunk significantly in the past few days, the pollsters said.
The PP would win between 150 and 154 seats, according to a GAD3 poll for ABC newspaper carried out on June 29-30. An earlier GAD3 poll conducted between June 5 and June 8 had given the PP between 150 and 153 seats.
But Vox fell to between 25 and 29 seats, down from a projection of between 33 and 35 in early June, GAD3 said.
A rival poll, carried out by IMOP Insights for the news website El Confidencial, saw PP and Vox garnering between 176 and 182 seats, down slightly from a range of between 180 and 183 two weeks earlier.
A third poll by 40DB, hired by El Pais newspaper, showed PP and Vox falling short of the 176 seats required for an absolute majority. They would win a combined 168 seats, down from 174 in 40DB’s previous poll.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Charlie Devereux and Gareth Jones)
