MADRID, April 28 (Xinhua) -- With just two hours until the polls close in the Spanish general election at 18:00 p.m. local time (1600 GMT), the Spanish government has confirmed that 60.70 percent of voters have cast their vote.
This is 9.25 percentage points up on the number of people who had voted by 18:00 p.m. in the June 2016 general election and continues the trend of an elevated turnout seen earlier in the day.
At 14:30 p.m. local time (1230 GMT), 41.48 percent of voters voted, 4.61 percentage points higher than that of 2016.
Nearly 36.9 million Spaniards are called to vote on Sunday and according to recent data, the election is very much in the balance with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez predicted to win, but with polls showing he will fall well short of an overall majority.
The current election in Spain is different to previous polls with Spaniards likely to be split between five main parties, with Sanchez's PSOE and Unidos Podemos broadly on the left and the People's Party, (PP), Ciudadanos and Vox on the right.
The arrival of the extreme right-wing Vox is a new factor in these elections with the party predicted to take around 30 seats in the Spanish Congress.
Traditionally, a high turnout in Spain favors the leftist block, but the arrival of Vox and the possibility of a "hidden vote" for the party means the result is almost impossible to call.
