Joe Duggan (Reporter)
SPAIN’S left-wing bloc is inching closer to seizing power, opinion polls show.
The socialists PSOE and Unidos Podemos – an alliance between Podemos and the communist IU – will win around 176 seats in this Sunday’s general election re-run.
The figure would be enough to get an absolute majority.
Unidos Podemos are on course to win between 24.6% and 26% of the vote, giving them 84 to 95 seats, according to three polls, while Pedro Sanchez’s PSOE will get between 78 and 85 seats.
While the ruling PP party is on course to win the most votes again, with Mariano Rajoy’s party projected to take between 113 and 129 seats, it will not be able to stay in power.
Even with the support of Ciudadanos, who are expected to get 40 seats, they would not have a majority.
An alliance between Unidos Podemos and the PSOE may still need backing from smaller provincial parties in order to push it over the 176 mark.
But major stumbling blocks, such as Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias’s insistence on a referendum on Catalan independence, still stand in the way of a coalition with the PSOE.
