A municipal election was held in Madrid on 22 May 2011 to elect the 9th City Council of the municipality. All 57 seats in the City Council were up for election. It was held concurrently with regional elections in thirteen autonomous communities and local elections all across Spain.
The People's Party (PP) won its 6th consecutive absolute majority of seats in the City Council, albeit with a diminished voter base, suffering its worst loss of support in the city up until that time (120,000 votes, 6 percentage points and 3 seats were lost from 2007). Only the collapse of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) vote, which obtained the worst result of its history as a result of the criticised José Luis RodrÃÂguez Zapatero's premiership in the national government, was larger. United Left (IU) benefitted from the PSOE debacle, while newly founded Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) attracted votes from sectors disenchanted with both PSOE and PP and entered the City Council in the first election in which they stood.
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, who was re-elected for a third term in office, left the mayoralty in late 2011 to become Justice Minister, after his party won the 2011 Spanish general election and Mariano Rajoy was elected Prime Minister. He was succeeded as mayor by Ana Botella.
Under the 1978 Constitution, the governance of municipalities in SpainâÂÂpart of the country's local government systemâÂÂwas centered on the figure of city councils (), local corporations with independent legal personality composed of a mayor, a government council and an elected legislative assembly. In the case of Madrid, the top-tier administrative and governing body was the City Council of Madrid.
Voting for local assemblies was based on universal suffrage, comprising all Spanish nationals over 18 years of age, registered and residing in the municipality and with full political rights (provided that they had not been deprived of the right to vote by a final court ruling, nor being legally incapacitated), as well as resident non-national European citizens, and those whose country of origin allowed reciprocal voting by virtue of a treaty.
Local councillors were elected using the D'Hondt method and closed-list proportional voting, with a five percent-threshold of valid votes (including blank ballots) in each municipality. Each municipality was a multi-member constituency, with a number of seats based on the following scale (amended for smaller municipalities in 2011):
The law did not provide for by-elections to fill vacant seats; instead, any vacancies arising after the proclamation of candidates and during the legislative term were filled by the next candidates on the party lists or, when required, by designated substitutes.
The mayor was indirectly elected by the local assembly. A legal clause required candidates to earn the vote of an absolute majority of councillors, or else the candidate of the most-voted party was automatically appointed to the post. In the event of a tie, the appointee was determined by lot.
The term of city councils in Spain expired four years after the date of their previous election, with election day being fixed for the fourth Sunday of May every four years (as of , this has been the year before a leap year). The election decree was required to be issued no later than the fifty-fifth day prior to the scheduled election date and published on the following day in the Official State Gazette (BOE). The previous local elections were held on 27 May 2007, setting the date for election day on the fourth Sunday of May four years later, which was 22 May 2011.
Local councils could not be dissolved before the expiry of their term, except in cases of mismanagement that seriously harmed the public interest and implied a breach of constitutional obligations, in which case the Council of Ministers couldâÂÂoptionallyâÂÂagree to call a by-election.
Elections to local councils were officially called on 29 March 2011 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 22 May.
The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, alliances and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form an alliance ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant electoral commission within ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of a determined amount of the electors registered in the municipality for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates. In the case of Madrid, as its population was over 1,000,001, at least 8,000 signatures were required. Additionally, a balanced composition of men and women was required in the electoral lists, so that candidates of either sex made up at least 40 percent of the total composition.
Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
The tables below list opinion polling results in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first and using the dates when the survey fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. Where the fieldwork dates are unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed with its background shaded in the leading party's colour. If a tie ensues, this is applied to the figures with the highest percentages. The "Lead" column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the parties with the highest percentages in a poll.
The table below lists weighted voting intention estimates. Refusals are generally excluded from the party vote percentages, while question wording and the treatment of "don't know" responses and those not intending to vote may vary between polling organisations. When available, seat projections determined by the polling organisations are displayed below (or in place of) the percentages in a smaller font; 29 seats were required for an absolute majority in the City Council of Madrid.
The table below lists raw, unweighted voting preferences.
The table below lists opinion polling on leader preferences to become mayor of Madrid.
Opinion poll sources
Other