Madrid - Four weeks ahead of Spain's parliamentary elections, the conservative People's Party (PP) is closing the gap on the ruling Socialists, opinion polls published Sunday showed. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist Party would receive 41.7 per cent of the votes in the March 9 polls, 2.9 percentage points ahead of the conservatives, according to an opinion poll published in Sunday's El Pais newspaper.
A poll published in the conservative El Mundo put the gap at only 2.6 per cent, while the conservative ABC newspaper put the Socialists 3.2 per cent in front, 0.6 points down on last week.
In elections four years ago, the Socialists achieved a surprise result with 42.6 per cent of the vote, 4.9 points ahead of the ruling PP at the time.
Zapatero has since led a minority government supported by leftist and regional parties.
