Postal vote count gives extra seat to PP as Basque National Party loses MP number seven

This makes life a little more difficult for the PSOE's Pedro Sánchez who, with 120 seats out of the total of 350 and with 176 needed for a majority, needs to find an additional vote in his favour to replace the outgoing PNV MP.

With 35 now guaranteed from left-wing Unidas Podemos thanks to a coalition agreement struck on Tuesday, plus another certainty from the Cantabria Regional Party's lone MP and five highly likely from Más País!, the Galicia National Bloc (BNG), and Teruel Existe, this gives Sánchez 161, but with the PNV's having dropped from seven to six, the 'definites' now only total 167.

Even if the Basque reunification party, EH-Bildu's five MPs and the two from the Canarian Coalition agree to vote for Sánchez, he will still only have 174 in favour and be two short.

This is likely to mean he will have to convince the Catalunya separatist parties, who total 23 MPs, to at least abstain from voting in the second round, where only a simple majority in favour is needed – but the largest of the three pro-independence outfits, the Catalunya Left Republicans (ERC), with 13, have already said they want an amnesty for their jailed politicians in exchange.

An additional seat for the PP also gives the far right a greater chance of gaining a slice of the power – with 89 for the PP, another 10 for centre-right Ciudadanos, plus two for the right-wing Navarra regional party NA+, the total of 101 combined with alt-right Vox's unexpected 52 seats means 153 who will vote against Sánchez.

The PP's 89^th seat goes to Beatriz Fanjul from the Basque province of Vizcaya, the capital of which is Bilbao, after postal votes revealed a 163-ballot difference between her and national government candidate number seven for the PNV, Jon Aiartza.

Aiartza will keep his regional Parliament seat, as he is number four for the most-voted party in the Basque Country, but will lose his slot in national Parliament.