Spanish general election 2000

The Spanish parliamentary elections in 2000 took place on March 12, 2000. The 7th legislative period after the end of the Franco dictatorship began with the elections.

House of Representatives

Against the incumbent Prime Minister José María Aznar of the conservative PP , the social democratic PSOE sent its General Secretary Joaquín Almunia into the running as the top candidate.

The PP , which has ruled since the 1996 elections, succeeded in gaining an absolute majority of the seats in the Congress . In 1996 it was still dependent on the support of the Catalan and Basque regional parties CiU and PNV to form a government.

Apart from the PP and the PSOE , only the left-wing socialist IU could enter the Congreso as a further party standing in Spain as a whole , even if this is to be seen as the big loser of the election (loss of more than half of their seats). In addition, a number of regional parties succeeded in entering the Congreso: from Catalonia the bourgeois CiU and the left ERC , from the Basque Country the bourgeois PNV and the social democratic EA , the CC from the Canary Islands , the BNG (Bloque Nacionalista Galego) from Galicia , the PA (Partido Andalucista) from Andalusia and the CHA from Aragon .

Herri Batasuna , the "political arm" of ETA , boycotted the election and called for "active abstention" ("abstención activa"). The decline in voter turnout in the Basque Country, however, corresponded to that of Spain as a whole; only in the province of Guipúzcoa was the decline of 14% compared to 1996 above the Spanish average. There was also only a very small increase in the number of invalid votes.

Results

Eligible voters: 33,969,640
Turnout: 68.71% (-8.67% compared to 1996)

Parliamentary elections 2000 - Congreso

Parliamentary elections 2000 - Congreso distribution of seats

Spanish general election, March 12, 2000
Political party	be right	% Be right	Diff.	Seats	% Seats	Diff.
Partido Popular (PP)	10,321,178	44.52	+5.73	183	52.29	+27
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE)	7,918,752	34.16	-3.47	125	42.29	-16
Convergència i Unió (CiU)	970.421	4.19	-0.41	15th	4.29	-1
Izquierda Unida (IU) - Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV)	1,382,333	5.45	-5.09	9	2.57	-12
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (EAJ-PNV)	353,953	1.53	+0.26	7th	2.00	+2
Coalición Canaria (CC)	248.261	1.07	+0.19	4th	1.14	=
Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG)	306.268	1.32	+0.44	3	0.86	+1
Partido Andalucista (PA)	206.255	0.89	+0.35	1	0.29	+1
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC)	194.715	0.84	+0.17	1	0.29	=
Eusko Alkartasuna (EA)	100,742	0.43	-0.03	1	0.29	=
Chunta Aragonesista (CHA)	75,356	0.33	+0.13	1	0.29	+1
Unió Valenciana (UV)	57,830	0.25	-0.12	0	0.00	-1
Herri Batasuna (HB)	n / A	n / A	-0.72	0	0.00	-2

senate

The "Senado" is made up of members directly elected by the people and other senators who are determined by the parliaments of the individual regions ( Comunidades Autónomas in Spanish ). 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).

In the 7th legislature the Senate consisted of 259 members: 208 directly elected and 51 delegated by the regional parliaments.

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. In the 2000 elections, this was the case in all provinces. There is therefore a form of majority voting.

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 March 2000 is given below:

General Election 2000 - Senado

Senado seat distribution 2000
total (directly and indirectly elected senators)

Composition Senate, March 2000
fraction	Senators total	Political party	Senators direct election	Political party	Senators indirectly
Partido Popular (PP)	150		127		23
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE)	69		53		16
Convergència i Unió (CiU)	11		8th		3
Entesa Catalana de Progrés (1)	11		8th		3
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (EAJ-PNV)	8th		6th		2
Coalición Canaria (CC)	6th		5		1
Collective group (Grupo Mixto)	4th	PIL (2)	1	IU	2
				BNG	1

(1) Electoral alliance made up of PSC (Catalan branch of the PSOE ), ERC and IC-V (Catalan branch of the IU )
(2) Partido de Independientes de Lanzarote

Government formation

Aznar was elected Prime Minister by the House of Representatives on April 26, 2000 in the first ballot.

Election of the Prime Minister VII legislature
candidate	date														Result
José María Aznar	April 26, 2000 necessary: absolute majority (176/350)	Yes	183		15th			4th							202/350
José María Aznar	April 26, 2000 necessary: absolute majority (176/350)	No		125		8th	7th		3	1	1	1	1	1	148/350

Web links

Spanish Ministry of the Interior: Results of Spanish elections since 1977 (Spanish)


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