MADRID, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Mariano Rajoy's ruling People's Party (PP) would win the most votes if a general election were held in Spain now, but the center-right Ciudadanos party continues to gain popularity, according to a key opinion poll published on Monday.
Published by the Center of Sociological Investigation (CIS), the poll gives the PP a 26.3-percent share of the vote, while the Socialist Party (PSOE) would win 23.1 percent.
Both of Spain's main parties have lost votes since the last CIS poll carried out in October, with the PP seeing support fall from 28 percent, five percent lower than the 33 percent the party polled in the June 2016 general election.
Support for the PSOE, meanwhile, has dropped from 24.2 percent in October, although the party is still more popular than in June 2016, when it won just 22.6 percent of the votes.
Cuidadanos have benefited from voters abandoning Spain's traditional parties. The party, led by Albert Rivera, would now take 20.7 percent of the votes in a theoretical election.
That is an impressive 7.7 percentage point increase on the 13 percent of the vote Ciudadanos won in the last general election and 3.2 percentage point up on October 2017.
Finally, the left-wing Podemos party has seen a slight upturn in fortunes with the number of people who said they would vote for them climbing from 18.5 to 19 percent.
The CIS carried out its survey between Jan. 2 and 14.
