Spain's conservative opposition Popular Party made significant gains in Sunday's local and regional elections, offering a dire assessment of public feeling towards the ruling left-wing coalition ahead of general elections in December.
In the local vote, the Popular Party, or PP, won 31.5% of votes compared with 28.2% for the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, or PSOE, which leads the central government, with more than 97% of votes counted, according to results published by the Interior Ministry. This was a 1.2 percentage point decrease for PSOE on 2019, but almost a 9 point increase for the PP, which benefited from the collapse of the centrist Citizens party.
