Spain’s PM calls snap election after conservative and far-right wins in local polls

Pedro Sánchez says Spanish people need to ‘clarify’ what they want after ruling socialists suffer losses in regional and municipal elections

Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has called a snap general election in response to the triumph of the rightwing opposition in Sunday’s regional and municipal elections.

The conservative People’s party (PP) – which used the polls as a de facto referendum on Sánchez’s coalition government with the far-left, anti-austerity Podemos party – scored an emphatic win, securing absolute majorities in the Madrid region and the city council, aking regions including Aragón, Valencia and the Balearic islands from the prime minister’s Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE).