Left-wing parties are close to winning an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in Spain's general election Sunday, preliminary results showed, likely scuppering Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's chances of winning a second term for the People's Party (PP).Despite garnering the most votes, the center-right PP had its worst result ever in a general election as Spaniards hurt by a grinding recession and yet to feel an economic recovery turned away from the party in droves.Anti-austerity Podemos roared into third place, outpacing fellow newcomer Ciudadanos whose market-friendly policies had been seen as a natural fit for a PP coalition.Podemos' unexpected surge tipped the balance to the left of the political spectrum with five left-wing parties led by the opposition Socialists and Podemos together garnering 175 seats, just one seat below the 176 needed for a majority.Such an alliance will however not be easy to agree on as some of these groups differ on economic policy or on the degree of autonomy that Catalonia should enjoy."The situation is highly complicated, I don't see an easy outcome," said Ignacio Jurado, politics professor at York University.
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