Spanish parliamentary elections 1982
On 28 October 1982 found Spain elections to the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales , which of the two chambers Congreso de los Diputados (House of Representatives) and Senado (Senate) consists instead. The congreso is politically much more important of the two chambers. The second legislative period after the end of the Franco dictatorship began with the elections .
They brought the social democratic PSOE into government, which then provided the prime minister with Felipe González for four legislative terms until 1996 .
Starting position
From the 1979 elections, the Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) emerged as the strongest force (35% of the votes and 168 out of 350 seats in the House of Representatives), so that it was able to provide Prime Minister with Adolfo Suárez again.
In the wake of the second oil crisis , Spain got into a difficult economic situation with high unemployment and inflation. ETA's terrorism, with almost 100 deaths each in 1979 and 1980, also became a serious problem for the young Spanish democracy.
Since 1980 there have also been signs of disintegration in the UCD, which had emerged in 1977 as an amalgamation of various groups, the spectrum of which ranged from social democratic, Christian democratic, liberal and regionalist to conservative forces.
This political climate ultimately led to Suárez, who has become increasingly unpopular with the population and his party, announcing his resignation from the office of prime minister on January 29, 1981. The UCD named Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as his successor .
When it was elected by the House of Representatives, there was a failed coup attempt on February 23, 1981 , in which Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero stormed parliament with hundreds of the Guardia Civil and took the MPs hostage.
Calvo-Sotelo was finally elected two days later, but in view of the other internal party problems of the UCD (including Suárez had left the UCD in July 1982 and founded a new party with the Centro Democrático y Social ) dissolved the parliament in August 1982, whereupon it came to the early elections on October 28, 1982.
Result
The election resulted in an overwhelming victory for the PSOE (48% of the vote and 202 of the 350 seats in the House of Representatives). The UCD (only 7% and 11 MPs) collapsed and became only the third strongest force. The conservative Alianza Popular (26% and 107 MPs) led by Manuel Fraga took its place in the bourgeois camp . The Communist Party of Spain lost six percentage points compared to 1979 and only had four MPs.
The turnout was 80%. This is the highest voter turnout since the end of the Franco dictatorship, which was never achieved again afterwards.
Many historians see the election as the culmination of Spain's transition to democracy , which began after Franco's death in 1975. On the one hand because of the high voter turnout, which is seen as an acceptance of democracy, and in spite of which the advocates of a return to dictatorship remained meaningless. On the other hand, because the election showed that the new political system, with its constitution and its right to vote, was suitable for enabling the change in government responsibility typical of democracies.
In addition, the 1982 election gave rise to a party system that remained basically stable in Spain until 2015: two large national parties (PSOE on the left, Alianza Popular and the Partido Popular on the right, which later emerged from it ), relatively weak smaller national parties (initially PCE and CDS , later only IU ) and a number of regional parties (in particular CiU, EAJ-PNV and ERC) that are also represented in the Spanish parliament.
Congreso (House of Representatives)
- Eligible voters: 26,846,940
- Turnout: 79.97% (+ 11.39% compared to 1979)
| ← Spanish parliamentary elections, October 28, 1982 → | ||||||
| Political party | be right | % Be right | Diff. | Seats | % Seats | Diff. |
| Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) | 10.127.392 | 48.11 | +17.71 | 202 | 57.71 | +81 |
| Alianza Popular -Partido Democráta Popular (AP-PDP) (1) | 5,548,107 | 26.36 | +20.47 (1) | 107 | 30.57 | +98 (1) |
| Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) | 1.425.093 | 6.77 | -28.07 | 11 | 3.14 | -157 |
| Partido Comunista de España (PCE) | 846,515 | 4.02 | -6.75 | 4th | 1.14 | -19 |
| Convergència i Unió (CiU) | 772.726 | 3.67 | +0.98 | 12 | 3.43 | +4 |
| Centro Democrático y Social (CDS) | 604.309 | 2.87 | New | 2 | 0.57 | +2 |
| Partido Nacionalista Vasco (EAJ-PNV) | 395,656 | 1.88 | +0.23 | 8th | 2.29 | +1 |
| Herri Batasuna (HB) | 210.601 | 1.00 | +0.04 | 2 | 0.57 | -1 |
| Esquerra Repúblicana de Catalunya (ERC) | 138.118 | 0.66 | -0.03 | 1 | 0.29 | = |
| Euskadiko Ezkerra (EE) | 100,326 | 0.48 | = | 1 | 0.29 | = |
| Fuerza Nueva (FN) | 108,746 | 0.52 | -1.59 (2) | 0 | 0.00 | -1 (2) |
| Partido Socialista de Andalucía-Partido Andaluz (PSA-PA) | 84,474 | 0.40 | -1.41 | 0 | 0.00 | -5 |
| Unión del Pueblo Canario (UPC) | 35,013 | 0.17 | -0.16 | 0 | 0.00 | -1 |
| Partido Aragonés Regionalista (PAR) | n / a (3) | n / a (3) | n / a (3) | 0 | 0.00 | -1 (3) |
| Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) | n / a (3) | n / a (3) | n / a (3) | 0 | 0.00 | -1 (3) |
Senado (Senate)
The Senate is composed of 208 members directly elected by the people and other senators who are determined by the parliaments of the individual regions (Spanish: Comunidades Autónomas ). The direct election takes place at the same time as the elections for the members of the Congress. The number of indirectly elected senators depends on the population of the respective region (one plus another for every 1 million inhabitants).
At the beginning of the second legislature, the four autonomous communities of Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country were constituted, so that initially only these four regions sent indirectly elected senators (19 in total). The other 27 indirectly elected senators from the other 13 Autonomous Communities did not join them until autumn 1983.
Direct elections take place in constituencies that correspond to the provinces (except for the Balearic and Canary Islands, where constituencies are the individual islands). In each of the provincial constituencies - regardless of the size of the population - four senators are elected, with each voter giving three votes and each party nominating three candidates. The supporter of a party will usually give his votes to the three candidates of "his" party. This usually results in the three candidates in the strongest party in the province getting more votes than the top-ranked candidate in the second strongest party. In the vast majority of cases, therefore, the strongest party will provide three senators and the second strongest party one for the province.
The composition of the senators sent by the regional parliaments can change during the legislature (if new regional parliaments are elected during the legislative period), therefore only the composition of the Senate at the beginning of the legislature in November 1982 (only with the indirectly elected senators from Andalusia , Catalonia, Galicia and Basque Country):
| ← Composition of the Senate, November 1982 → | ||||
| Political party |
Senators total |
Senators direct election |
Senators indirectly |
|
| Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) | 142 | 134 | 8th | |
| Alianza Popular -Partido Democráta Popular (AP-PDP) | 56 | 54 | 2 | |
| Convergència i Unió (CiU) - Esquerra Repúblicana de Catalunya (ERC) | 9 | 7th | 2 | |
| Partido Nacionalista Vasco (EAJ-PNV) | 8th | 7th | 1 | |
| Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) | 7th | 4th | 3 | |
| Asamblea majorera (AM) | 1 | 1 | ||
| Partido Comunista de España (PCE) | 1 | 1 | ||
| Non-party | 3 | 1 | 2 | |
Government formation
According to the Spanish constitution, only the congreso is relevant for the formation of a government: it elects the prime minister (Art. 99), the government is responsible only to him (Art. 108).
Felipe González was elected Prime Minister on December 1, 1982.
| candidate | date |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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|
1st December 1982 necessary: absolute majority (176/350) |
Yes | 201 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
207/350 |
||||||
| No | 104 | 11 |
115/350 |
||||||||||
| abstention | 12 | 8th | 1 |
21/350 |
|||||||||
| Not
took part |
1 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
7/350 |
See also
Web links
- Results of Spanish elections since 1977 Spanish Ministry of the Interior (Spanish)
Individual evidence
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