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		</div><p>Spain&#8217;s Socialist Party has lost its first attempt to form a government, falling far short of the parliamentary votes needed ahead of a second ballot scheduled for Friday.</p>
<p>The Socialists, led by Pedro Sanchez, got just 130 votes, with 219 against and one abstention.</p>
<p>The conservative Popular Party, led by acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, and the far-left newcomer Podemos party joined together along with several small regional parties to deny Mr Sanchez&#8217;s attempt at becoming prime minister.</p>
<p>The vote came after an inconclusive December 20 election that saw the nation&#8217;s traditional two-party system shattered with the entry of Podemos and another upstart party, the business-friendly Ciudadanos.</p>
<p>Podemos and Ciudadanos got third and fourth place because of voter outrage over high Spanish unemployment, unpopular austerity measures invoked by the Popular Party during its 2011-2015 rule and corruption scandals hitting the Popular and Socialist parties.</p>
<p>Sanchez needed at least 176 votes to form a government but only received his party&#8217;s 90 votes plus 40 from Ciudadanos.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy had earlier labelled Mr Sanchez&#8217;s plans to form a government as a joke and said all of his party&#8217;s 123 deputies would vote against the Socialists, who came in second in the election.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy&#8217;s party came in first but fell far short of winning the parliamentary majority it had previously.</p>
<p>Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos with 69 seats, said his parliamentarians voted against Mr Sanchez because they did not believe the Socialists would lead a bonafide leftist government.</p>
<p>Mr Sanchez has another chance on Friday in a second parliamentary voting round with different winning rules in which he must get more votes for him than against him. That is a lower bar which allows parties to abstain, letting a rival into power in return for concessions.</p>
<p>Mr Rajoy decided in January not to try to form a government because he lacked support.</p>
<p>If Mr Sanchez fails to win Friday&#8217;s vote, parliament has two more months to try to choose a government or new elections will be called for June 26.</p>
<p>A governing alliance of parties excluding the first-place winner has never happened nationally in Spain.</p>
<p>But it recently happened in neighbouring Portugal and has a precedent in Spain at the regional and local governing level.</p>
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