Protests over high unemployment and government austerity measures continue as Spaniards vote in local and regional elections.
The ruling Socialists are expected to suffer heavy losses as they are blamed for the widespread unemployment.
Tens of thousands of Spaniards demonstrated in the past week in city squares around the country against austerity measures that have kept a fiscal crisis at bay, but aggravated the highest jobless rate in the European Union.
This morning, hundreds of protestors were sleeping in tents and under awnings in Madrid's Puerta del Sol after an overnight demonstration that drew an estimated 30,000 people.
The protestors have called on Spaniards to reject the Socialists and the centre-right Popular Party, the main two political options in Spain.
The protests are not expected to shift the outcome of the voting for 8,116 city councils and 13 out of 17 regional governments, where the centre-right Popular Party is expected to make major gains.
Polls show the Socialists could lose strongholds such as the Castilla-La Mancha region, where they have controlled the regional legislature for decades, and the city of Sevilla, where they have been in power for 12 years.
If forecasts hold true, the outcome will be a rebuke for Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Mr Zapatero was applauded abroad for his fiscal discipline during the eurozone crisis, but is unpopular at home as the economy stagnates.
The Socialists, in power since 2004, are also looking likely to lose the next general election, which is scheduled for March 2012.
That election could come earlier if big losses today spark a leadership crisis within the party.
After the eurozone debt crisis forced Greece, and later Ireland and Portugal, to take bailouts, Mr Zapatero implemented a round of measures to tackle a huge public deficit and to persuade financial markets that it has the budget under control.
He is expected to maintain unpopular economic policies whatever the outcome of today’s vote.
'Unless the government wants to run the risk of another episode of financial distress and the debt spreads sky rocketing again, it will have to implement another austerity package before the next elections,' Fernando Fernandez, an analyst at Madrid's IE business school, said.
