After a turbulent and hard-fought campaign, the Spanish elections on April 28 offered few definite answers for the country’s future. The most obvious conclusion from the result is that the center-left Socialists (PSOE) were the big winners and the conservative Popular Party (PP) the big losers. Yet the results for forces outside the two traditional parties point to the ongoing climate of instability. While the center-right Ciudadanos did better than it had in 2016, Podemos slipped back; reflecting a mounting polarization over the national question, the Spanish-nationalist Vox made a historic breakthrough, while the Catalan independence parties achieved their highest ever result in any Spanish-wide election.

As moves to create a new government continue in the hours and days after Sunday night’s result, we face a quickly moving scenario. Almost any of the preelection forecasts could still be realized, though the combined forces of the Right (the liberal-nationalist Ciudadanos together with the PP and far-right Vox) fell short of the numbers they would need to create a government. This has widely been seen as a win for PSOE and even for Podemos, whose fall from 21 to 14 percent was not as bad as many expected. Yet if this was a victory, it was a Pyrrhic one. Creating a left-wing government on the basis of these results looks like a titanic challenge, and the danger of PSOE making a pact with Ciudadanos also looms.