SPAIN went to the polls today in a general election that could make the country the latest European Union member to swing to the political right.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the early election after his Spanish Socialist Workers Party and its left-wing partner, Unidas Podemos, took a severe beating in local and regional elections in May.

Most opinion polls have put the right-wing Popular Party (PP), which won the May vote, ahead of the Socialists but likely to need the support of the far-right Vox party to form a government.