Spanish PM's Socialists win snap polls marked by far-right gains

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists won snap elections Sunday without the necessary majority to govern solo in a fragmented political landscape marked by the far-right's entry into parliament.

The results raise the spectre of another period of instability for Spain, with Sanchez depending on alliances with hostile rivals in an environment that has soured since Catalonia's failed secession bid in 2017.

A significant development was the rise of the ultra-nationalist Vox party, which garnered just over 10 per cent of the vote in a country that has had no far-right party to speak of since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Sanchez's Socialist Party (PSOE) got 123 lawmakers out of 350, or close to 29 per cent of votes -- short of an absolute majority but much better than the 85 seats it got in 2016.

"The Socialists have won the general election and with it the future has won and the past has lost," he told cheering supporters from the balcony of the party's ...