[Published: Monday December 03 2018]
 Spain far-right elect regional MPs
MADRID 3 Dec (ANA) - A far-right party in Spain has won seats in a regional parliament for the first time since the country's return to democracy following the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
The small Vox party, which opposes undocumented immigration and Catalan independence, took 12 seats in Sunday's polls in the southern Andalusia region, according to official results.
It was the first time the nationalist surge that has swept much of Europe had reached Spain, long seen as immune because many still remember Franco's military dictatorship.
With the Socialists weakened in a region they governed since Franco's death and which they could now lose to a right-wing coalition, the result is likely to send shockwaves through the Spanish political landscape.
A series of local, municipal and European elections will follow at the end of May, with politics in the eurozone's fourth-largest economy - long dominated by the Socialists and the conservative People's Party (PP) - upended by start-up parties.
The Andalusia vote was the first electoral test for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power without an election in June after parliament overthrew the conservatives over a corruption scandal.
The next national election is due in 2020 but speculation has been rife for months that Sanchez, who controls fewer than a quarter of seats in the Madrid parliament, could call a snap vote.
However, senior Socialists said before the Andalusia election that they did not expect it to trigger a general election, and there would seem to be little incentive for Sanchez to do so now after the disappointing results for his party in Andalusia.(ANA)
FA/ANA/3 December 2018-------
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