MADRID - Polarized Spanish voters handed neither conservatives nor liberals a decisive victory in Sunday's highly charged elections, setting up a political impasse that could take weeks or months to untangle.
Conservatives had hoped for a comeback in a progressive bastion of Europe with some of the world's most liberal laws on abortion and transgender rights. But the left led by the Socialists of photogenic Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez - who had called early elections in a risky gambit - overperformed, posting better numbers than projected. Late Sunday, a jubilant, defiant Sánchez addressed supporters in Madrid, who chanted anti-fascist slogans.