Right wins absolute majority in Andalusia with 70 pct. of votes counted
(Update 1: Preliminary official results)
Madrid, Jun 19 (EFE).- The conservatives of the Popular Party won 56 seats, an absolute majority, in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in the autonomous Spanish region of Andalusia, according to figures with 70 percent of the votes counted, and the result will allow them to govern without forming a coalition with other parties.
According to these preliminary results, the Socialists will take 32 of the 109 parliamentary seats and the extreme rightist Vox party will obtain 14.
The leftist forces of Por Andalucia and Adelante Andalucia will garner 5 and 2 seats, respectively, even as the liberal Ciudadanos lose representation in the legislature in the southern Spanish region.
Thus, the PP will not require the backing of any other party to enable the current Andalusian regional president, conservative Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, to continue in office.
Given the preliminary results, the PP may well have secured its best result in Andalusian regional election history, thus dethroning the Socialists as the main political force in the region.
The allocation of seats with 70 percent of the votes counted largely confirms the results of a voter survey conducted by the GAD3 company for the regional public media outlet Canal Sur and state-run radio-television network RTVE.
That survey of 9,200 interviews with registered voters over several days found that the PP might win as many as 61 seats of the 109 in the autonomous regional parliament, with the socialist PSOE receiving between 26 and 30 seats, and Vox garnering 13 to 15 seats, Adelante Andalucia 3 to 4 seats and Por Andalucia 3 seats.
EFE vg/jdm/jl/vh/bp
