The source said that António Costa had sent a message of congratulations to the prime minister of Spain and leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), Pedro Sánchez, in a brief telephone conversation.

With about 95% of the votes counted, the PSOE leads the poll with about 28% of the votes, corresponding to 120 MPs, with the conservatives of the People's Party (PP) in second place with 88 seats and the far-right Vox party with 52 seats in third place.

The extreme-left coalition Unidas Podemos has so far elected 35 MPs and the Citizens get only 10 seats.

With these results, the bloc of left parties (PSOE, Unidas Podemos and Mais País) totals 158, while the bloc of right-wing parties (PP, Vox and Citizens) reaches 150 seats. Electoral participation is 69.96%.

In the April 28 elections, the socialists of the PSOE had 28.7% of the votes, followed by the PP with 16.7%, the Citizens (liberal right) with 15.9%, the Unidas Podemos (extreme left) with 14.3% and the Vox (extreme right) with 10.3%.

Today's elections were called in September by the King of Spain, after finding that the incumbent socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, failed to gather enough support to return to his seat following the April elections.