A general election was held in Spain on 10 November 2019 to elect the members of the 14th under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 265 seats in the Senate. It was a repeat election under the provisions of Article 99.5 of the Constitution, as a result of the failure in government formation negotiations following the previous general election.
Political differences between the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos after the April 2019 election saw Pedro Sánchez's failed investiture as prime minister on 23âÂÂ25 July 2019. With no further party negotiations during the summer, King Felipe VI declined to propose any candidate for investiture ahead of the 23 September deadline, with a new general election scheduled for 10 November. The failure in negotiations prompted Podemos' founder ÃÂñigo Errejón to turn his regional Más Madrid partyâÂÂwhich had obtained a remarkable result in the 26 May Madrilenian regional electionâÂÂinto a national alliance under the newly created brand of Más PaÃÂs, comprising a number of regional parties and former Podemos and United Left allies, such as Coalició CompromÃÂs, Equo or Chunta Aragonesista, while also seeing an exodus of a number of Podemos officials.
Voter turnout was the lowest since the transition to democracy in 1975, with just 66.2% of the electorate casting a ballot, which was lower than the previous negative record set in the 2016 election (66.5%), the only other occasion in Spanish democracy that an election was triggered as a result of the failure of a government formation process. The election saw a partial recovery for the opposition People's Party (PP) and large gains for the far-right Vox party at the expense of Citizens (Cs), which suffered one of the largest electoral setbacks in the history of Spanish elections following the party scoring its best historical result in the April 2019 general election, signalling the end of Albert Rivera's active political career. Both PSOE and Unidas Podemos saw slight decreases in both popular vote and seats, but were still able to outperform the combined strength of PP, Vox and Cs; consequently, both parties agreed to set aside their political feuds and successfully negotiated a government shortly after the election, to become the first governing coalition in Spain since the Second Spanish Republic.
The tenure of the newly formed government, which was formally appointed on 13 January 2020, would be quickly overshadowed by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March and its political and economical consequences, including the worst worldwide recession since the Great Depression resulting from the massive lockdowns enforced to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
The April 2019 general election in a clear victory for the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) under the acting prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, but also in a highly fragmented parliament, with the right divided between the People's Party (PP), Citizens (Cs) and the far-right Vox. With both a grand coalition with the PP and a 180 seat-agreement with Cs ruled out because of mutual vetoes, a deal between the PSOE and Pablo Iglesias's left-wing Unidas PodemosâÂÂbacked by smaller partiesâÂÂappeared to be the most viable outcome.
Talks were delayed until after the 26 May 2019 local, regional and European Parliament elections, whose results largely confirmed the PSOE's general election gains.However, Podemos's poor performance allowed right-wing alliances between the PP, Cs and Vox to take control of several key institutions, particularly the Madrid city council and the regional governments of Castile and León, Madrid and Murcia. This encouraged the PSOE to push for a single-party government with confidence and supply support rather than the coalition demanded by Podemos. At the same time, Cs was weakened by internal divisions over Albert Rivera's decision to pursue right-wing alliancesâÂÂincluding VoxâÂÂand to veto any PSOE-led government; this led to the departure of critics such as Manuel Valls (former French prime minister and party leader in Barcelona, who gave support to Ada Colau's election as local mayor to prevent a pro-Catalan independence administration) and Toni Roldán (the party's economics spokesman). Meanwhile, Podemos was also facing a party crisis marked by growing ideological and personal tensions, seeing the split of co-founder ÃÂñigo Errejón into the Más Madrid platform and followed by further resignations among leading members.
After receiving King Felipe VI's nomination to attempt an investiture, a political deadlock developed as Sánchez and Iglesias clashed over the composition of the future government. Podemos demanded ministerial ports, while the PSOE offered only secondary positions. Both parties exchanged proposals in an attempt to pressure the other, until Iglesias eventually withdrew his demand to personally join the cabinet as it became clear that his presenceâÂÂand disagreements over issues such as the Catalan crisisâÂÂwas a major obstacle for Sánchez. Even so, deep mistrust between the two parties, negotiation leaks, disagreements over portfolios (especially equality and labour), and accusations of excessive demands, prevented an agreement and led to a "complete breakdown" in talks. Sánchez's investiture bid was defeated 155âÂÂ124 on 25 July 2019, with PP and Cs voting against (neither willing to abstain), Podemos abstaining, and smaller parties refusing to commit without a clear deal.
The summer ended without progress, as Sánchez postponed further negotiations until September while the PSOE hardened its position and withdrew its offer to include Podemos in the government. Final proposals saw the PSOE offering a programme of 370 policy measures and key responsibilities in state institutions outside the cabinet, while Podemos proposed a one-year trial coalition. A last-minute move by RiveraâÂÂwho U-turned on his previous stanceâÂÂoffered Cs's abstention if it was matched by the PP and linked to certain conditions on taxation, government formation in Navarre and Catalonia, but the proposal failed to gain support. After further consultations by King Felipe VI produced no agreement, a snap election was called for 10 November 2019 amid mutual accusations among the parties.
Under the 1978 Constitution, the Spanish were conceived as an imperfect bicameral system. The Congress of Deputies held greater legislative power than the Senate, having the ability to grant or withdraw confidence from a prime minister and to override Senate vetoes by an absolute majority. Nonetheless, the Senate retained a limited number of specific functionsâÂÂsuch as ratifying international treaties, authorizing cooperation agreements between autonomous communities, enforcing direct rule, regulating interterritorial compensation funds, and taking part in constitutional amendments and in the appointment of members to the Constitutional Court and the General Council of the JudiciaryâÂÂwhich were not subject to override by Congress.
Voting for each chamber of the was based on universal suffrage, comprising all Spanish nationals over 18 years of age with full political rights, provided that they had not been deprived of the right to vote by a final court ruling. Additionally, non-resident citizens were required to apply for voting, a system known as "begged" voting ().
The Congress of Deputies had a minimum of 300 and a maximum of 400 seats, with the electoral law fixing its size at 350. Of these, 348 were elected in 50 multi-member constituencies corresponding to the provinces of SpainâÂÂeach of which was assigned an initial minimum of two seats and the remaining 248 distributed in proportion to populationâÂÂusing the D'Hondt method and closed-list proportional voting, with a three percent-threshold of valid votes (including blank ballots) in each constituency. The remaining two seats were allocated to Ceuta and Melilla as single-member districts elected by plurality voting. The use of this electoral method resulted in a higher effective threshold depending on district magnitude and vote distribution.
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:
208 Senate seats were elected using open-list partial block voting: in constituencies electing four seats, voters could choose up to three candidates; in those with two or three seats, up to two; and in single-member districts, one. Each of the 47 peninsular provinces was allocated four seats, while in insular provincesâÂÂsuch as the Balearic and Canary IslandsâÂÂthe districts were the islands themselves, with the larger ones (Mallorca, Gran Canaria and Tenerife) being allocated three seats each, and the smaller ones (Menorca, IbizaâÂÂFormentera, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, El Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma) one each. Ceuta and Melilla elected two seats each. Additionally, autonomous communities could appoint at least one senator each and were entitled to one additional senator for every million inhabitants.
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.
Spanish citizens of legal age and with the right to vote could run for election, provided that they had not been sentenced to imprisonment by a final court ruling or convictedâÂÂwhether final or notâÂÂof offences that involved loss of eligibility or disqualification from public office (such as rebellion, terrorism or other crimes against the state). Additional causes of ineligibility applied to the following officials:
Other ineligibility provisions also applied to a number of territorial officials in these categories within their areas of jurisdiction, as well as to employees of foreign states and members of regional governments. Incompatibility rules further extended to a range of senior public officials and to those elected on candidacies later declared illegal, as well as prohibiting the simultaneous holding of the positions of deputy and senator or of a national and regional parliamentary seat.
The term of each chamber of the âÂÂthe Congress and the SenateâÂÂexpired four years from the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier. The election decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the scheduled expiration date of parliament and published on the following day in the Official State Gazette (BOE), with election day taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication. The previous election was held on 28 April 2019, which meant that the chambers' terms would have expired on 28 April 2023. The election decree was required to be published in the BOE no later than 4 April 2023, with the election taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication, setting the latest possible date for election day on 28 May 2023.
The prime minister had the prerogative to propose the monarch to dissolve both chambers at any given timeâÂÂeither jointly or separatelyâÂÂand call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no state of emergency was in force and that dissolution did not occur before one year after a previous one. Additionally, both chambers were to be dissolved and a new election called if an investiture process failed to elect a prime minister within a two-month period from the first ballot. Barring this exception, there was no constitutional requirement for simultaneous elections to the Congress and the Senate. Still, as of , there has been no precedent of separate elections taking place under the 1978 Constitution.
The were officially dissolved on 24 September 2019 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 10 November and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 3 December.
The tables below show the composition of the parliamentary groups in both chambers at the time of dissolution.
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 at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates. Concurrently, parties, federations or alliances that had not obtained a mandate in either chamber of the at the preceding election were required to secure the signature of at least 0.1 percent of electors in the aforementioned constituencies. 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.
A special, simplified process was provided for election re-runs, including a shortening of deadlines, electoral campaigning, the lifting of signature requirements if these had been already met for the immediately previous election and the possibility of maintaining lists and alliances without needing to go through pre-election procedures again.
Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
The November 2019 Spanish general election was the first to apply the new electoral procedures introduced for election re-runs as a result of the experience of the 2015âÂÂ2016 political deadlock leading to the June 2016 election. This consisted of a special, simplified process, including a shortening of deadlines, electoral campaigning, the lifting of signature requirements if these had been already met for the immediately previous election and the possibility of maintaining lists and coalitions without needing to go through the same pre-election procedures again. The key dates are listed below (all times are CET. The Canary Islands used WET (UTC+0) instead):
The pre-campaign period saw the rise of a new left-wing electoral platform, Más PaÃÂs, founded by former Podemos co-founder ÃÂñigo Errejón around his Más Madrid platform, following the failure of the left to agree on a government following the April election. Más PaÃÂs was joined by several other parties, such as Coalició CompromÃÂs, Chunta Aragonesista and Equo, the latter of which voted for breaking up its coalition with Unidas Podemos in order to join Errejón's platform. The leadership of Podemos in the Region of Murcia also went on to joint Más PaÃÂs. The platform went on to poll at 6% as soon as it was formed.
On 24 September, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled in favor of the PSOE's plan to remove the remnants of Francisco Franco from the Valle de los CaÃÂdos, a key policy of Pedro Sánchez during the previous legislature. The prior of the Valle de los CaÃÂdos' abbey, Santiago Cantera, initially announced his intention to disregard the Supreme Court's ruling and not authorize Franco's exhumation; however, the Spanish government closed down the monument to the public on 11 October in order to prepare for the exhumationâÂÂfinally scheduled for 22 October at latest, so for the removal to be over by 25 OctoberâÂÂto uphold the Supreme Court's ruling.
On 13 October, the leaders of the Catalan independence movement involved in the events of October 2017 were sentenced by the Supreme Court for sedition and embezzlement to convictions ranging from 9 to 13 years in jail. The ruling unleashed a wave of violent protests throughout Catalonia, and particularly in Barcelona, throughout the ensuing days.
The table below shows registered voter turnout on election day, without including non-resident citizens.
On 11 November, the day after the election, Albert Rivera resigned as leader of Citizens (Cs) after the party lost over 80% of its seats in the Congress and one-third of its seats in the Senate (mainly to Vox and the PP), and announced his intention to give up the Congress seat to which he had been elected, and retire from politics entirely. The PP recovered around one-third of the seats it had lost in the Congress in the April 2019 election, and almost half of the Senate seats it had lost on that occasion. The right-wing nationalist Vox party saw its seats in the Congress more than double, and it won its first directly elected Senate seats. Más PaÃÂs gained two seats in the Congress from Madrid (one from the PSOE and one from Podemos), while the leftist and Catalan nationalist Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) gained its first seats in the national legislature after choosing to participate at the national level for the first time.
On 7 January 2020, Pedro Sánchez was confirmed as prime minister by the Congress of Deputies.
In February 2023, Ramón Tamames, a former member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), aged 89 at that moment, put himself forward to be an independent candidate for prime minister if a Vox-proposed motion of no confidence were successful. The motion failed on 22 March with 52 votes in favour (Vox plus one independent), 91 abstentions (People's Party plus one independent) and 201 votes against.
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