Over all, the result was one that was likely to hearten defenders of center-left solutions to the challenges of unsettling global times. If not the beginnings of a backlash against the populist far right — though it may be — then the result seemed at least to be a fortifying of defenses.

It was the kind of turnout that Democrats in the United States might hope for in 2020 or, more immediately, that defenders of the European Union, such as President Emmanuel Macron of France, are seeking in elections in May for the European Parliament, where much the same big stakes are in play.

None of that is to say that the forces of political fragmentation that have bedeviled Spain’s politics, and those elsewhere in Europe and the United States, are over. If anything, Spanish politics splintered further, just four years after the collapse of the country’s two-party system.

But even the highly polarized result confirmed Spain as one of the last bastions of socialism in Europe, at a time when center-left parties have all but collapsed in countries including France, Germany and Italy.

“In a Europe now dominated by center-right governments that seem to live in fear of the far right or in the hands of the far right, Spain stands out instead as a fortress for social democracy,” said José Ignacio Torreblanca, the head of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.

“Everything in the campaign seemed to push Spanish voters toward the extremes, but they mostly responded by voting for the more moderate center,” he said.

Vox’s proposals, which included abolishing the autonomous administrations in Spain’s regions, lit a fire under left-wing voters, but they also seemed to galvanize smaller regional and nationalist parties, which made significant gains on Sunday.

Fear of Vox, as well as concerns about a traditional, conservative Popular Party willing to embrace the far-right party as its coalition partner, “filled the ballot boxes against racism, sexism, fascism and this vision of a Spain in which only a few can fit in,” wrote Ignacio Escolar, the editor in chief of eldiario.es, an online publication.

The results gave the Socialists 123 of the 350 seats in a splintered Parliament. While the Socialists fell short of a majority, they had almost double the number of seats of their main opponents, the Popular Party, whose support was cut in half. The center-right party’s showing was the worst in its history.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist leader, will now have different options to form another coalition, most probably including the far-left Unidas Podemos, whose leader, Pablo Iglesias, also welcomed “the brake on the far right” delivered by voters. [...]

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