A total of 37.4 million registered voters, 2.3 million of whom will be abroad, will be able to vote in the elections in Spain, where 350 deputies in the Parliament and 208 out of 265 senators in the Senate will be determined.
The Spanish Supreme Election Board announced that 210 thousand ballot boxes were set up across the country due to the elections.
The elections, which coincided with the summer period for the second time in the country’s democracy history, became the subject of polemics due to the extreme heat, while in many schools where ballot boxes were set up, fans and lots of water were taken to the tables where ballot boxes were located.
The cost of the elections is 220.87 million euros.
More than 90 thousand police and gendarmerie will work to ensure security during the voting process, which will take place between 09.00 and 20.00 local time (10.00-21.00 CEST).
It is stated that the cost of the elections will be 220.87 million euros.
While the turnout in the last elections held in December 2019 in Spain was 75.75%, a participation of around 70% is expected in today’s elections.
Due to the extreme heat and the summer period, approximately 2.6 million Spaniards voted by mail, while the rate of voting by mail, which reached a record level, was twice as high as in the last elections.
The Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and the ultra-leftist Unidas Podemos parties, which have been in power in Spain since January 2020 and are the first coalition government in the country’s democracy history, rule the country with a parliamentary minority.
Polls show that the main opposition right-wing People’s Party (PP) will emerge as the first party in the elections but will be forced to form a coalition government with the far-right Vox party as it will not win the parliamentary majority. If this possibility occurs, a far-right party will come to power for the first time in Spain after the dictator Franco era.
Alberto Nunez Feijoo, 62, who was elected president of the PP nearly a year ago, asked the PSOE to abstain and support the minority government, so as not to cooperate with Vox in the event that they emerge as the top party in the election.
Feijoo left the door ajar to form a coalition government with Vox if necessary due to a refusal from the PSOE.
PSOE leader and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had delayed the general elections, which should have been in the range under normal circumstances, in order not to lose any more votes after the defeat in the local elections on 28 May and to persuade the left voters to go to the polls.
According to the election traditions in Spain, with the closing of the ballot boxes at 20:00, the results of the polls will be broadcast on television, and the official results will be announced by the Ministry of Interior as of 21.00.