Follow the latest updates as four parties vie for power amid an economic crisis, high unemployment and cuts to public services
9.43pm GMT
We’re still a little way from the end of the count, but here’s a first take on the results fo far from my colleague Ashifa Kassam in Madrid:
The conservative People’s party won Spain’s general election on Sunday but fell short of an absolute majority, as Spaniards fed up with corruption, austerity measures and double-digit unemployment voted to do away with the two-party dominance that has characterised modern Spanish politics.
9.37pm GMT
Catalonia is the key. If PSOE/PODEMOS/ERC/CONVERGENCIA find common ground, all is possible. 1st step will be to scapegoat Rajoy for standoff
9.36pm GMT
As alluded to before, while Ciudadanos’ showing may not have lived up to some predictions, its seat count is still impressive.
Cs didn't meet pre-vote expectations, but for a party that until recently didn't field candidates nationally, 14% (38 seats) extraordinary
9.33pm GMT
Rajoy can’t really govern without socialist support. But a socialist government backed by Podemos and separatists would be unstable.
9.33pm GMT
A grand pact between Rajoy’s PP and socialists in Spain would likely be suicide for the latter.
9.32pm GMT
Can Sanchez (PSOE) and Iglesias (Podemos) hold a government together with various others? If not, early elections likely.
9.31pm GMT
This tweet from the writer Maxim Huerta sums up a lot of the confusion the results have created:
So now we’ve got the longed-for plurality. And now we’re saying it’s complicated. Which one are we going for?
Ya tenemos aquí la deseada pluralidad. Y ahora diciendo que es complicada. En qué quedamos.
9.27pm GMT
Podemos has 69 seats so far; Unidad Popular two. Could things have worked out differently, wonders Giles Tremlett.
How many more seats would Podemos and Unidad Popular have won if they had joined forces? My guess is several. The old story of a split left.
9.16pm GMT
OK. With more than 75% of the vote counted, this is the picture:
Partido Popular: 123
9.02pm GMT
The journalist Jordi Evolé is wondering what’s been going on with all the talk of the rise of Ciudadanos:
Why did they big up Ciudadanos so much? Why? They’ve managed to make a good result look really bad.
¿Por qué inflaron tanto a Ciudadanos? ¿Por qué? Han conseguido que sacando un buen resultado parezca muy malo.
8.55pm GMT
Thanks to all who’ve pointed out the failure to count all the Podemos seats across its different names. With more than 60% of the votes counted, here’s how it’s looking:
Partido Popular: 124
8.48pm GMT
8.46pm GMT
Spain elections: with 43% of the vote counted, PSOE+Podemos (168) ahead of PP+C’s (153) but both short of a majority (176) #20D
8.44pm GMT
We’re still a little way of the final count, but some are already picking up a whiff of horse-trading. This from AP:
If the projections are confirmed, analysts said it could make it extremely difficult for the Popular Party to form a government because it wouldn’t get a majority of seats in parliament by allying with Ciudadanos, its most natural partner.
8.37pm GMT
Right. Just over 40% of the vote counted and this is how things are looking seat-wise:
Partido Popular: 118
8.29pm GMT
Iñigo Errejón of Podemos is adamant that the results - still coming in - mark a decisive shift in Spanish politics after decades of predictable pendulum swings.
Spain has already changed: we’ve done away with two-party politics.
Errejón: "España ya es otra: hemos acabado con el turnismo" #eleccionesA3 https://t.co/rF6nxXvfu1 pic.twitter.com/IXg1D5U2no
8.24pm GMT
Discuss:
No news channel leading with Spanish election. Some times you despair of our myopia.
8.22pm GMT
With almost 25% of votes counted, the Partido Popular has 125 seats, the Socialists 95, Podemos 39, and Ciudadanos 30 …
8.15pm GMT
Let the voxpops commence!
I asked this man what drove him to come to PP HQ and he said: "I sell flags" pic.twitter.com/2DYh1Wfth6
8.13pm GMT
The digital news site El Español has a nice graphic of Spain’s political colours tonight.
Sigue el recuento de votos en nuestra app. Por @martgnz y @lukas_appelhans #MiVotoCuenta https://t.co/iwjugnpXBc pic.twitter.com/97KJ4J9iW5
8.09pm GMT
The results are coming in here on the official election website. So far, about 10% of the vote has been counted.
8.06pm GMT
Podemos supporters gathering in Madrid are very happy - not surprising as the exit polls have the new party winning the second largest share of the vote ...
Huge cheers among gathering crowd in Madrid that Podemos could be "the 2nd biggest political force in the country" pic.twitter.com/ficaOp4DSu
7.59pm GMT
TV3 exit poll has Podemos and allies winning in Catalonia (https://t.co/zx5vmrzado): pic.twitter.com/Gq7q2cGhn9
7.51pm GMT
More from Alberto Nardelli, our data editor. He says that if the exit polls are correct, the combined share of the vote won by the PP and PSOE result would be at its lowest ever.
Spain elections - PP + PSOE: 1989: 65.4% 1993: 73.6% 1996: 76.4% 2000: 78.7% 2004: 80.3% 2008: 83.8% 2011: 73.4% 2015: <50% #20D
If the results confirm the exit polls, today’s elections will see an end to Spain’s two-party system. The People’s Party and the socialist PSOE historically win a combined 70-80% of the vote. Tonight they’re projected to win less than 50% of the vote share.
7.49pm GMT
A quick update on the outcry over the interior ministry’s tweet earlier today.
The Association for the Recuperation of Historical Memory (ARMH) says it will be complaining to the ministry as it feels the tweet suggested that Franco did not rebel against a democratically elected government - which, of course, he did.
In [the tweet], it was claimed that the first democratic elections in Spain took place in 1977. This is an indirect way of asserting that Franco did not rise up against a democratic government. The first democratic elections were held on 19 November 1933, during which, for the first time, men and women voted according to universal suffrage. The ARMH will be seeking a correction.
7.38pm GMT
A note of caution - and some rapid analysis - from our Madrid-based contributing editor Giles Tremlett:
Exit polls at Spanish elections are notoriously unreliable and are even more difficult to interpret when we have two new parties - Podemos and Ciudadanos - competing. That said, the eruption of these insurgents in such a short space of time is remarkable and highlights widespread disgust with the status quo.
The available polls point to the lack of a full parliamentary majority for either a right-to-centre bloc with Mariano Rajoy’s People’s party and Ciudadanos, or for a left-to-centre bloc with Podemos, Socialists and Popular Unity.
7.37pm GMT
Worth remembering that although Podemos seems to have won a greater share of the vote than the Socialists - 21.7% to 20.5% according to the RTE poll; 21.1% to 20.4% according to Antena 3 - it may not translate into the new party winning more seats because of the way Spanish electoral law works.
Basically, Podemos appears to have attracted fewer preferences in little-populated areas, where the Socialists look to have done better.
2/ Si hay un empate de votos, PSOE logra más escaños que Podemos por su voto en provincias pequeñas. pic.twitter.com/FMITSOKTa7
7.18pm GMT
My colleague Alberto Nardelli, the Guardian’s data editor, makes a good point:
Spain has basically had the election that Britain was expecting in May. #20D
7.17pm GMT
Some are pointing out that - if the exit polls are correct - then the lure of Podemos appears to have been significantly underestimated in previous polls, while that of Ciudadanos has been overestimated:
Según sondeos a pie de urna, Podemos estaba infraestimado por las encuestas, Ciudadanos sobreestimado pic.twitter.com/7DBHuV0g6B
7.14pm GMT
The Spanish TV station Antena 3 is also predicting a win for the Popular party, but, again, without an absolute majority.
El PP sería el más votado en porcentaje, seguido de Podemos, PSOE y C's https://t.co/VmldK6UiDi #eleccionesA3 pic.twitter.com/qFsuBul1F5
7.09pm GMT
A poll for RTVE, Spain’s public service broadcaster, gives the Popular party 26.8% of the vote and 114-188 seats, the Socialists 81-85 seats, Podemos 76-80 and Ciudadanos 47-50 seats.
7.05pm GMT
According to the exit polls, the Popular party would win between 114 and 124 of the 176 seats it would need for an absolute majority. The Socialists would win 79-85 seats, Podemos 70-80 and Ciudadanos 46-40.
7.03pm GMT
Right, so the exit polls are calling a victory for the Popular party - albeit without an absolute majority. The Socialists are forecast to finish second, with Podemos third and Ciudadanos fourth.
7.01pm GMT
BREAKING: SPAIN’S RULING CONSERVATIVES WIN GENERAL ELECTION, FALL SHORT OF ABSOLUTE MAJORITY - EXIT POLLS
7.01pm GMT
And what of Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos (which means We Can)?
Iglesias, who voted in a working class neighborhood of Madrid, said Spain was “going through a new transition” as Podemos and Ciudadanos seek to take votes away from the nation’s traditional Popular Party and Socialist Party, which have dominated Spanish politics for more than three decades.
6.58pm GMT
The leader of Spain’s new business-friendly Ciudadanos party, Albert Rivera, has said his country is entering into a new era of democracy with a vote likely to end the nation’s decades of two-party political dominance.
Casting his vote in a working class suburb of Barcelona, Albert Rivera said he and other young Spaniards who weren’t alive during the nation’s 1939-1975 dictatorship “didn’t experience the first democratic transition [and] are experiencing a second one”. He added: “This is a new era.”
6.56pm GMT
The leader of Spain’s main opposition Socialist party expressed hope that his fellow citizens would turn out in droves for a landmark election as he cast his vote in a wealthy Madrid suburb.
Pedro Sánchez, who showed up at a polling station in Pozuelo de Alarcón with his wife, said the “best news we can hope for today is that we get a high turnout of voters. Spaniards know that today is a historic day.”
6.54pm GMT
How have the party leaders spent polling day? This from Associated Press (AP):
The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has voted in a well-heeled Madrid suburb and then headed off for a long lunch with his family. Rajoy said he was confident “people will choose what they think is best for their country” as they decide whether to vote for his right-of-centre Popular Party, the country’s main opposition Socialist Party or two new upstart parties aiming to shake up Spain’s traditional two-party dominance.
6.51pm GMT
The Spanish consulate in London has been busy today. According to this tweet, UK-based Spaniards queued for five hours to vote.
Cinco horas de cola en Consulado de Londres #FaltaMiVoto pic.twitter.com/1R33FisbG2
6.48pm GMT
Hats off to the residents of the Riojan hamlet of Villarroya, which once again became the first municipality in the region to close its ballot box - at 9.01 this morning. The impressive feat probably had something to do with the fact that there are just six people on the electoral register.
Still, as the mayor, Salvador Pérez, put it:
We were all down there first thing to exercise our right to vote.
6.48pm GMT
With the polls due to close in a few minutes, voter turnout looks to be slightly up compared with the last general election in 2011.
The government says turnout as of 6pm (1700 GMT) was 58.4 %; voter participation was 57.7% at the same point last time round.
6.48pm GMT
With so much at stake, people are being encouraged - on Twitter and elsewhere - to get out and vote. As this tweet says: “All those who are going to be complaining about the election results tomorrow: if you’re not going to vote today, don’t grumble.”
Aquellas personas que mañana tendrán quejas de los resultados de las elecciones, si no vais a votar hoy... No os quejéis #MiVotoCuenta
6.48pm GMT
What exactly is at stake? Who are the parties and what’s on voters’ minds? Here’s a taste of our election guide, courtesy of my colleague Alberto Nardelli.
Spain is electing all 350 members of its lower house, the Congress of Deputies, and most of the Senate (208 of 266 seats).
Since Spain’s transition to democracy at the end of the 1970s, general elections have been dominated by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) or the centre-right People’s party (PP) and its earlier incarnations.
6.48pm GMT
The big difference this time round, of course, has been the emergence of two new parties who are likely to draw votes from the People’s party and the Socialists. The economic upheaval of recent years has seen the rise of the anti-austerity party Podemos and the centre-right Ciudadanos. As our Madrid correspondent, Ashifa Kassam points out, a lot of political soul-searching is going on:
As Spaniards emerge from a debilitating economic crisis and grapple with issues such as double-digit unemployment, cuts to public services and the ongoing exodus of job-seekers from the country, much of the campaign has been focused on the need for political and institutional transformation.
‘I’m convinced that Spaniards will ask for change,’ Ciudadanos’ leader, Albert Rivera, 36, told supporters in Madrid on Friday as the election campaign drew to a close. ‘I’m convinced that these years of weariness, of corruption ... are coming to an end.’
6.45pm GMT
Spain’s interior ministry is taking a lot of heat for tweeting a picture of the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy of the PP, next to one of Adolfo Suárez, who, in 1977, became Spain’s first democratically elected prime minister following Franco’s death.
The accompanying caption reads: “Thirty-eight years of democratic history have passed between these two pictures.”
#EleccionesGenerales2015 Entre estas 2 imágenes han pasado 38 años de historia democrática en España pic.twitter.com/L00D4GCpvP
6.36pm GMT
Good evening and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Spanish general election. Today’s vote is the most hotly contested and unpredictable that the country has seen since its return to democracy following the Franco era, with the results likely to herald the end of the two-party dominance that has marked Spanish politics since the early 1980s.
The conservative People’s party and the Socialists – both of whom have alternated in power for decades - are expected to lose seats to anti-austerity party Podemos and centre-right Ciudadanos.
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