Spanish right wins Andalusia vote without majority

Spain’s ruling conservatives won regional elections in Andalusia on Sunday but fell short of an outright majority that would have allowed them to govern solo, partial results showed.

With just over 90 percent of the votes counted, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party won 50 seats in the 109-seat Andalusian legislature compared to 47 seats for the Socialists.

The communist-led United Left coalition picked up 12 seats, double what it obtained in the last regional elections in 2008, and has the balance of power in the new assembly.

A party needs at least 55 seats for an outright majority in the assembly of Spain’s most populous region were a third of the workforce is out of work.

Several polls published before the election had indicated that the Popular Party, which made corruption and high unemployment the focus of its campaign, would win a majority in the assembly.

The results open the possibility that the Socialists could remain in power if they secure the backing of the United Left.

The Socialists have ruled the regional government in Andalusia since Spain returned to democracy after the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975.

The southwestern region, home to 8.4 million people, built on its agriculture-based economy from the 1960s by luring tourists to its beaches on the Costa del Sol and exquisite Moorish monuments.

From the 1990s onwards it was swept along by the property boom, which collapsed in 2008 laying waste to millions of jobs and creating financial havoc in banks, businesses and government.

Andalusia now has the highest unemployment rate of any region in Spain at 31.23 percent, higher even than the national rate of 22.85 percent which itself is a record among industrialised nations.