Spanish Poll Shows Yet Another Stalemate in Nov. 10 Election

(Bloomberg) -- Spain will be no nearer to breaking a deadlock after next Sunday's election, with a 40dB poll predicting another hung parliament.

The Socialists will once again win the most seats, but could fall well short of a majority, with two fewer seats than the 123 tally in April's election, according to the survey published by El Pais. Their potential allies, Podemos, with which they failed to reach an agreement to form a coalition government during months of negotiations, would win 11 fewer seats at 32, while the newly formed splinter party Mas Pais would win five.

The biggest beneficiaries of Spain's fourth election in four years look set to be the right-wing parties. The People's Party, that had their worst performance in its history last time round, is on course to claw back 25 seats to win 91 seats overall, while Spain's new nationalist, anti-immigration party Vox could be third biggest faction in parliament with 46 seats. Center-right party Ciudadanos stands to be the biggest loser, shedding 43 seats from its current 57.

A Gesop poll published by El Periodico predicts a similar outcome, with acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists needing support from Podemos, Mas Madrid and the Catalan nationalist party Esquerra Republicana to win a confidence vote. The poll sees the Socialists winning between 119 and 123 seats while the PP would win 84 to 87, Vox 49 to 53 and Podemos 37 to 41.

Spaniards will vote on Nov. 10 after Sanchez's efforts over the summer to forge a new government came to nothing over his refusal to allow the anti-austerity Podemos to join his Socialists in a coalition. Spain has been operating with minority governments since 2015.

40dB's online nationwide poll of 2,002 people was carried out on Oct. 23 to Oct. 29 and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. Gesop's poll of 1,504 computer-assisted telephone interviews carried out Oct. 28-31 has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

To contact the reporter on this story: Charlie Devereux in Madrid at cdevereux3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Lars Paulsson, Amy Teibel

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