The big news on Sunday was that the Socialist Party (PSOE), led by Pedro Sánchez, won the highest number of seats at the Spanish general election. But the outcome of the vote also had an impact on other issues. Here is a roundup of other important news concerning the results that you might have missed.

High-profile losses

The outcome of Sunday’s vote has meant that some well-known figures are losing their congressional seats, particularly within the Popular Party (PP), which lost 71 seats on Sunday – a historically poor result for the conservative group. These include Mari Mar Blanco, sister of Miguel Ángel Blanco, a PP councilor who was kidnapped and executed by the Basque terrorist group ETA in July 1997. Blanco, who now heads the Terrorism Victims Foundation, had been a PP deputy since 2016.

Podemos candidate Rita Bosaho, Spain’s first black member of Congress, lost her seat on Sunday. Pepe Olivares

Also out is Rita Bosaho, a Podemos deputy who gained media attention in December 2015 when she became the first black person to sit inside Spanish Congress. Bosaho was running as number three for Alicante province, where Podemos only earned two seats.

No bullfighters in Congress

None of the bullfighters who were running with the PP and Vox have made it into Congress. The far-right Vox, whose defense of hunting and bullfighting has been one of its key policies, had a matador named Serafín Marín on its Barcelona list. Instead, Vox’s only seat representing Barcelona province will go to an atypical party member: Ignacio Garriga,whose father is Catalan and mother is from Equatorial Guinea.

The PP had also enlisted toreros: Salvador Vega for Málaga and Miguel Abellán for Madrid. Neither one has made it into the lower house.

Valencia election

Besides voting in the general election, residents of the Valencia region also cast their ballots for their regional representatives on Sunday. The Valencia branch of the Socialist Party, the PSPV-PSOE, received the highest number of votes, representing its first victory in 28 years in a region that had been long run by the PP. In 2015, the PP won the most seats but an alliance between the Socialists, Podemos and the regional Compromís ushered in a leftist executive. Regional premier Ximo Puig has opened talks in a bid to renew the alliance.

PSOE premier Ximo Puig celebrates after win at regional elections in Valencia. ©GTRES

Historic win in the Senate

The Socialist Party won an absolute majority in the Senate, breaking 25 years of PP control. The PSOE now holds 121 seats in the upper house, a significant rise from the 43 the party took at the 2016 polls. In addition to the senators elected by popular vote, the PSOE has 18 others who were appointed by the regional legislatures. This gives Sánchez’s party a total of 139 seats in the 266-seat Senate, where the absolute majority is 134. Not since 1993 has the PSOE been the most-voted party in the Senate.

As in Congress, the PP suffered a crushing defeat in the Senate vote, losing 74 seats to be left with just 56 seats. The remaining seats were won by the Catalan Republican Left-Sovereigntists (ERC-Sobiranistes) (11 seats), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) (9), Ciudadanos (Citizens, 4), Navarra Suma (3), Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) (2), Gomera Socialist Group (ASG) (1) and EH Bildu (1) from the Basque Country.

Animal-rights group misses out on a seat

The Animalist Party Against Mistreatment of Animals (PACMA) once again missed out on a seat in Congress. Although the group won 1.25% of the vote, the equivalent of more than 300,000 ballots, the party did not win a seat in Congress because support was spread out across the country. Spain uses the D’Hondt method of proportional representation, according to which some votes carry more weight depending on where they are cast.

PACMA office on election night. KIKE PARA EL PAÍS

“How can you justify the fact that the 50,000 people who voted for the Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC) have representation and the 300,000 who voted for PCMA are left out again?” asked PACMA candidate Laura Duarte.

Despite the disappointing result, the party is optimistic about their chances at the upcoming European elections.

English version by Susana Urra. </s> A far-right party on Sunday won seats in a Spanish regional parliament for the first time since the country returned to democracy following the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, results in Andalusia's election showed.

With 93 percent of the votes counted, the small Vox party took 12 seats, handing a majority to right-wing parties in the southern Spanish region governed by the Socialists for the last 36 years.

The result means that Vox, which opposes illegal immigration and Catalan independence, has exceeded even the most optimistic poll predictions which had forecast a possible five seat win.

The Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) scored the worst result in its history winning 33 seats so far.

Its potential ally on the left Adelante Andalusia (Forward Andalusia) picked up only 17 seats, depriving the left of a majority, while the conservative Popular Party (PP) won 26 seats and the Ciudadanos liberals took 21 seats.

The poll had been seen as the first of a series of tests for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

It was Sanchez's first electoral test since taking office in June after winning a surprise vote of no-confidence in parliament against the previous PP government of Mariano Rajoy over a corruption scandal.

His Socialists had ruled Andalusia since 1982.

The vote, however, is a mere foretaste of the coming 'super election year': 2019 will see municipal, regional and European elections and perhaps even an early general election to coincide with the other May polls.

All eyes will now be on Vox which can try to use Andalusia as a springboard in next year's elections.

If it did win a seat in the next general election, it would be the first time a far-right party had had a presence in Spain's lower house of parliament since 1982.

In all, 6.5 million were eligible to vote in the ballot in Andalusia, the country's most populous region and among its poorest.

The PSOE's Susana Diaz -- who last year unsuccessfully challenged Sanchez for the party leadership -- had been seeking to retain the regional presidency while also giving Sanchez and the national party a fillip.

But Vox sought to throw a spoke in their wheels by adding its voice to traditional conservative forces led by the PP and market-friendly Ciudadanos, which has in recent years challenged the PP for the mantle of Spain's dominant liberal force.

"These elections are key as a first step in the removal of Pedro Sanchez" and the PSOE from the government, PP leader Pablo Casado told Radio COPE on Friday.

Casado said a defeat in its traditional southern fiefdom would render the PSOE's attempt to retain power nationally "unsustainable." The Socialists are already walking a tightrope given they hold just 84 seats in the 350-seat national assembly.

Both the PP and Ciudadanos had said during the campaign that if rightwing forces together won a majority of seats they would not rule out accepting support in the regional chamber from Vox.

Vox's campaigning had mainly been against illegal immigration and any decentralisation of powers from Madrid.

"Vox is going to back whichever option entails throwing out Susana Diaz and the Socialist Party" from the regional administration, party deputy-leader Javier Ortega Smith said Saturday.

Diaz meanwhile called for "stability" as she ended her campaign, warning voters against forces of the right and far-right that "want to take us backwards".

Turnout by 1700 GMT was 46.4 percent, the regional government said -- five points down on the last election in 2015. </s> MADRID (AP) — A fragmented Spanish Parliament convened Tuesday after last month’s inconclusive general election, including for the first time Catalan politicians released from pre-trial detention for the occasion, as well as two dozen lawmakers…

MADRID (AP) — A fragmented Spanish Parliament convened Tuesday after last month’s inconclusive general election, including for the first time Catalan politicians released from pre-trial detention for the occasion, as well as two dozen lawmakers from an upstart far-right party.

Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez won the national election but fell short of enough seats to form a government on his own. He has put off negotiations on governing alliances until after the European ballot concludes on Sunday, which in Spain coincides with votes to elect local councils and a dozen regional governments.

Escorted by police, four separatists on trial for Catalonia’s 2017 secession attempt, including former Catalan regional Vice President Oriol Junqueras, appeared in the Congress of Deputies, while former Catalan regional minister for international relations Raül Romeva was ferried to the Senate from a jail some 40 kilometers outside of Madrid.

The Supreme Court has allowed them to attend the opening sessions in Madrid but they are likely to be barred from future meetings by the chambers’ governing bodies elected on Tuesday.

Dressed in suits and exchanging embraces and greetings with other lawmakers, Junqueras and the three others took seats in the Congress of Deputies among political opponents, including two far-right Vox party deputies who are also prosecutors in their ongoing trial for rebellion and other charges that could land them in prison for decades.

Vox is the first parliamentary party that openly espouses Spanish nationalism since dictator Gen. Francisco Franco died in 1975. It wants to use its 24 seats among the 350 lower house lawmakers to propose legal reforms on abortion, violence against women and migration.

The eruption of Vox in the late April election split the right-wing vote into three groups, which together fell short of the 176 majority. As a result, competition for the leadership of the opposition has intensified between two parties — the once-dominant conservative Popular Party and the center-right Citizens.

The Socialists were the leading party in the election with 123 seats. But with Citizens ruling out any pacts to support a Socialist administration, Sánchez’s efforts to form a government are centered on the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos, which holds 42 seats, and some other smaller groups.

Those votes were key on Tuesday in the election of Socialist lawmakers from Catalonia was speakers of both houses: Meritxell Batet in the Congress of Deputies and Manuel Cruz in the Senate.

Sánchez said they had been proposed because both are “loyal to Spain” and because they have shown “an unwavering vocation for dialogue.”

“They are Catalans at the service of Spain and Spaniards at the service of Catalonia,” the prime minister told his Socialist lawmakers.

The speakers’ first task will be meeting with their governing bodies and deciding whether to suspend the elected separatist lawmakers because they are in jail while awaiting trial.

Tuesday’s unconventional session provided a number of odd situations to satisfy media camera lenses. Vox’s deputies chose to take seats that in past sessions had been occupied by the Socialists, placing the far-right party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, right behind Sánchez and other members of the Socialists’ caretaker government.

Sánchez greeted Abascal with a handshake. The Socialist leader also shook hands with Junqueras, who has become a symbol for pro-independence supporters in the northeastern Catalonia region.

Two Socialist lawmakers also made the rounds on social media when they posed near Abascal in T-shirts bearing an emoji with the rainbow flag. The icon has become popular and has been dubbed “Gaysper” after Vox used it during last month’s general election to target defenders of gay rights in a viral tweet.

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The Valencian regional election is held concurrently. The ruling left-wing alliance led by PSPV-PSOE wins a majority.