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MADRID, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- With a year to go until the next general election in Spain, a newspaper opinion poll shows the country's recently created political party Podemos ("We Can") would be the winner if the election was to be held now.

According to the poll published on the "El Mundo" newspaper, which was taken by the consultancy group Sigma Dos, Podemos would now win 28.3 percent of the votes, beating the ruling Peoples' Party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy.

The PP came second with 26.3 percent of the votes, almost 18 percent less than their votes in the November 11 general election.

Podemos, a populist left wing party led by lawyer Pablo Iglesias, was founded in February. It stunned observers when it took five seats in the Elections for the European Parliament in May after polling 1.2 million votes with 7.9 percent of the votes cast.

Despite Pedro Sanchez, the new leader of the Socialist (PSOE) Party, being one of the most popular politician, votes going to the PSOE continue to decline. According to El Mundo, the Party wins 20.1 percent of the vote, compared with the 29 percent votes it obtained three years ago.

The PSOE have lost votes to Podemos, while other parties such as the United Left (Izquierda Unida) and the center-right Union Progress and Democracy (UPyD) have also seen voters switch to the new party. Podemos has benefited from recent corruption scandals affecting the PP, PSOE and IU. IU would now poll just 4.2 percent of the vote while UPyD 4.5 percent.

A poll published simultaneously by the Catalan newspaper "El Periodico de Cataluna,' shows Podemos is also the major force in that region of Spain, polling 22.8 percent of the votes. It came ahead of the Catalan nationalist parties Republican Left and Convergence and Union, which respectively would take 15.3 percent and 17.2 percent of the votes in a general election.