The conservative leader of Spain's Madrid region, who for months defied the leftist central government by keeping bars and shops open during the COVID-19 pandemic, won a regional election on Tuesday, an opinion poll showed as voting ended.
Isabel Diaz Ayuso, from the People's Party (PP), will need the support of one more party to keep running the region, the poll by GAD3 for TVE and Telemadrid broadcasters showed.
Official results will now start trickling in and confirmation of the winner should come in the next few hours.
(Reporting by Belen Carreno and Ingrid Melander, editing by Andrei Khalip and Clara-Laeila Laudette)
