PEDRO Sanchez has returned from the dead to become PSOE general secretary with a stunning political victory.

The Socialist leader, who quit his role last year, overcame his Andalucian rival Susana Diaz, securing 50% of the vote to Diaz’s 40%.

BACK FROM THE DEAD: Sanchez secures PSOE victory
BACK FROM THE DEAD: Sanchez secures PSOE victory

In the Balearics, Sanchez trounced Diaz, winning 71.4% compared with Diaz’s 17.8%.

“The PSOE will make a useful opposition in defence of the social majority who are fed up with the corruption of the Popular Party (PP),” Sánchez said from party headquarters in Madrid.

“We will comply with the ballot’s mandate: make the PSOE the party of the country’s left.”

Patxi Lopez, a former Basque premier who also worked as speaker of Congress, came a distant third with just over 9% of the vote.

Sanchez quit as general secretary following the party’s decision to abstain in last October’s investiture vote, allowing PP leader Mariano Rajoy to return to government again.

The abstention ended a nine-month political deadlock during which Spain had two general elections, neither of them producing a winner.

Last week, Podemos issued a motion of no confidence in the PP, with Pablo Iglesias’s hard-left party looking to the PSOE to help fight Mariano Rajoy

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