Spain faces weeks of political uncertainty as its general election on Sunday was inconclusive, with the ruling Socialist Party falling short of the votes required to continue the country’s leadership. 

The opposition Popular Party also did not win enough ballots to upturn the rule of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Most votes were divided between centre-right and centre-left, but none won enough votes to keep it in charge of the 350-seat parliament.  

Although the conservatives came out ahead in the election with 136 seats as against the socialist’s 122, it could not lay claim on the country’s leadership because its allies that could complement its popularity, the hard right Vox Party, was massively rejected by the country’s voters.  

The outcome, hence, resulted in an inconclusive election that will unsettle the country’s domestic politics for weeks until the political parties reach an agreement or a new election is conducted. 

The conservative Popular Party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, argued that his party should be allowed to form a government since they returned with the most parliamentary seats. 

He said candidates with the most votes had always governed and that a different scenario would be an “anomaly” that could tarnish Spain’s reputation abroad. 

Mr Feijóo said his goal was to spare Spain a period of “uncertainty.”

Spain’s domestic political stability is most important at this period when the country holds the rotating leadership of the European Council in the face of Russia’s ongoing special military intervention in Ukraine. 

But political uncertainty in Spain is nothing new. The country was in a political quagmire for ten months in 2016 as it zipped from election to election. Then, in 2018, Mr Sanchez defeated the conservative prime minister and took control through a parliamentary procedure. 

More elections were held before Mr Sánchez finally put together a minority leadership with support from small independent groups in parliament and the far left.