Spain's governing Socialists claimed victory in today's election but said they had fallen short of an absolute majority.
"We can say with confidence that the Socialist Party has won," party secretary Jose Blanco told a news conference, adding that the Socialists seemed to have won 168-171 seats in the 350-seat lower house, the Congress.
Socialist party secretary Jose Blanco
Mr Blanco said Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was in a better position to govern, and promised a new era of "change and progress" over the next four years.
Preliminary results showing Mr Zapatero's Socialist party nearly nine percentage points ahead of the rival conservatives. With 26 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Zapatero's party had 46.1 per cent, compared to 37.6 per cent for the conservative Popular Party, according to the Interior Ministry.
If the results hold, the Socialists were likely to gain a significant number of seats in the lower house of Parliament and could come close to an outright majority.
The results appeared to be a powerful endorsement of Mr Zapatero's record, which includes sweeping social changes, a withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, and a drive to cede more power to Spain's semiautonomous regions.
For Mariano Rajoy, his conservative rival in today's vote and in 2004, a second consecutive defeat would be crushing and likely increase pressure on him to step down as party chief.
The vote came two days after the killing of Socialist politician Isaias Carrasco at the hands of the Basque militant group Eta, which jolted Spaniards and prompted both parties to cancel final campaign appearances.
The timing of the attack was reminiscent of an election-eve massacre by Islamic militants who killed 191 people in a string of bombings against commuter trains in Madrid on March 11th, 2004.
Three days after that attack, Mr Zapatero won a surprise victory amid a wave of voter outrage at the ruling conservatives, who blamed the attacks on Eta even as evidence of Islamic involvement mounted.
The tactics were widely seen as a bid to deflect perceptions that the killings were al Qaeda's revenge for the government's deeply unpopular support of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Many conservatives consider Mr Zapatero's 2004 victory a fluke, and saw today's vote as their chance to correct it. Conversely, a strong showing by the prime minister would be vindication of his performance in power and lend him a legitimacy that critics say he has lacked.
AP