The Socialists scored a third straight electoral victory, but Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez's parliamentary majority dwindled to just one seat through defections to the left, results showed Monday.
Analysts credited a four-year economic boom and confidence in the future as helping push the Socialist Party over the top in Sunday's general elections.However, they said, the governing party's majority was sharply reduced because organized labor was angry over Gonzalez's pro-business policies and unwillingness to further boost social spending.
The man who first rose to power in 1982 has helped give Spain Europe's fastest growing economy.
In Sunday's balloting, the Socialists won 176 seats, or 39.55 percent of the vote, the minimum needed for a majority of the 350 seats in Parliament's powerful lower house. They had won 184 seats in 1986 elections.
The biggest gains were won by the United Left coalition that includes the Communist Party, which increased its seats to 17, with 9 percent of the vote, from the seven seats in 1986.
With all the votes counted, Interior Minister Jose Luis Corcuera also announced these results early Monday in the Cortes, or lower house: the conservative Popular Party, 106 seats, 25.83 percent of the vote; the Catalan Convergence and Union, 18 seats, 5 percent; the Democratic and Social Center of former prime minister Adolfo Suarez, 14 seats, 8 percent.
The remaining seats were divided among eight smaller parties.
The Popular Party under 36-year-old Jose Maria Aznar, an inexperienced former tax collector who took over just two months ago, remained the largest opposition force. However, it gained just one seat in this election.
In the 208-seat Senate, the Socialists won 109 seats, the Popular Party 74, the Convergence and Union 10, the United Left 1 and the Democratic and Social Center 3. The remaining seats went to the smaller parties.