MADRID, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez would win a general election should one be held in the country, but would once again fall short of an overall majority, according to the first opinion poll of 2019 published by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) on Thursday.
The CIS poll shows that if elections were held today, Sanchez's PSOE would win 29.9 percent of the vote, 0.1 percent more than in the previous CIS poll published in December.
The main surprise in the CIS findings is the collapse of support for the right-wing People's Party (PP), which has lost over 4 percent of its support to fall to fourth place in voting intentions with 14.9 percent of the vote, compared to 19.1 percent at the end of 2018, as right-wing voters' support continues to splinter in Spain.
The center-right Ciudadanos party also sees a slight drop in support, down from 17.9 percent to 17.7 percent.
It seems almost certain that those who have abandoned the PP and Ciudadanos have switched their allegiance to the extreme right-wing party Vox, which claimed 10.9 percent in the recent elections for the Andalusian regional assembly, where they now hold the balance of power.
6.5 percent of those questioned in the CIS poll said they would vote for a party that stands on an anti-immigration and anti-women's rights platform. This is an increase of 2.8 percent from December 2018, when such parties could count on the support of 3.7 percent of voters.
Finally, the left-wing Unidos Podemos sees a slight increase in support, despite internal problems in the party between leader Pablo Iglesias and one of the party's founders, Inigo Errejon.
The CIS conducted its survey between Jan. 1 and Jan 13., asking a total of 2,989 people in 292 towns and cities in 49 different provinces.
