According to the final Sigma Dos poll before next Sunday's general election, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's socialist PSOE party is 4.1% points ahead of Mariano Rajoy's right-wing conservative PP party with respect to voter intention. This translates, rather confusingly, into between 157-171 seats for the socialists and between 148-161 for the PP.

The survey, which was conducted for the PP-friendly El Mundo newspaper, is based on 11,000 interviews carried out between the 20th February and the 1st March.

It reveals strong support for Mariano Rajoy's party and a manifesto based on clamping down on crime and immigration in the over 65s.

The socialists, meanwhile, seem to have achieved their objective of appealing to women and the 1.7 million new voters with an 11% lead among 18-29 year olds and a 7% lead in overall female voter intention.

Ahead of today's second and final live televised debate of the campaign, Mariano Rajoy was in Mr Zapatero's home town of León, where he was somewhat eclipsed by an unannounced appearance by his predecessor José María Aznar, while the socialist leader warmed up at a pre-election rally in Zaragoza.