Spanish general election 2016
(turnout 66.48%)
On June 26, 2016, elections to the Spanish parliament , the Cortes Generales , took place. The 350 members of the House of Representatives ( Congreso de los Diputados ) and 208 of the 265 members of the Senate ( Senado ) were elected for the XII. Legislative period since the constitution of 1978 came into force. It was an early election, after the elections on December 20, 2015, for the first time, a government failed to be formed.
The 2016 election did not result in a clear majority, so that the formation of a government was again difficult. It was not until October 29, 2016, two days before the deadline for new elections expired , that Mariano Rajoy was re-elected Prime Minister by the parliament at the head of a minority government supported by Ciudadanos and tolerated by the socialists.
Starting position
The 2015 Spanish general election ended the two-party system in Spain. The ruling Partido Popular (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy lost over a third of its voting share, but remained the strongest party with 28.7%. The opposition social democratic PSOE also lost votes and remained the second strongest force with 22%. The left-wing Podemos , founded in 2014, was just behind the PSOE with 21%, while the economically liberal Ciudadanos won 14% of the vote. In addition to these four major parties, various regional parties, particularly Catalan and Basque, moved into the two chambers of parliament.
Except for a grand coalition of PP and PSOE, which excluded both parties, no two-party alliance was possible for the formation of a government. Podemos and Ciudadanos ruled out a collaboration. The support of the Catalan regional parties tied them to the approval of a Catalan independence referendum - which all major parties except Podemos refused.
A government was not formed, which is why the parliament elected on December 20, 2015 was dissolved by decree of May 3, 2016, and new elections were scheduled for June 26, 2016 in accordance with Art.
Electoral process
congress
According to Article 68 (2) of the Constitution and Article 162 of the Electoral Act, Congress has 350 members elected in 52 constituencies. Constituencies are the 50 provinces and the two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla . One MP is elected in each of Ceuta and Melilla. Each of the 50 provinces receives two mandates in advance. The remaining 248 MPs are allocated to the provinces according to the ratio of their population according to the Hare-Niemeyer method .
The following numbers of deputies were elected in the provinces:
- Madrid Province : 36 MPs
- Barcelona Province : 31 MPs
- Valencia Province / València: 16 MPs
- Alicante / Alacant provinces , Seville : 12 members each
- Málaga Province : 11 MPs
- Murcia Province : 10 MPs
- Cádiz Province : 9 MPs
- Provinces of Asturias , Balearic Islands , Bizkaia , A Coruña and Las Palmas : 8 MPs each
- Provinces of Granada , Pontevedra , Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Zaragoza : 7 MPs each
- Provinces of Almería , Badajoz , Córdoba , Guipuzkoa , Girona , Tarragona and Toledo : 6 MPs each
- Provinces of Cantabria , Castellón / Castelló , Ciudad Real , Huelva , Jaén , Navarra and Valladolid : 5 MPs each
- Provinces of Albacete , Araba / Álava , Burgos , Cáceres , León , Lleida , Lugo , Ourense , La Rioja and Salamanca : 4 MPs each
- Provinces of Avila , Cuenca , Guadalajara , Huesca , Palencia , Segovia , Teruel and Zamora : 3 MPs each
- Soria Province : 2 MPs
- Autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla : 1 MP each
Elections are made in the provinces according to closed lists, with the seats being allocated to the lists according to the D'Hondt procedure . In the autonomous cities, the MPs are determined by a relative majority.
The allocation of seats takes place solely at the level of the constituencies (provinces), there is no balance of remaining votes at the national level. The nominal threshold clause is only 3% in all constituencies. In most constituencies, however, the actual percentage threshold is significantly higher due to the limited number of mandates to be awarded.
senate
In accordance with Article 69 of the Constitution and Article 165 of the Electoral Act, four senators are appointed to the Senate in each mainland province, three senators each on the islands of Gran Canaria, Mallorca and Tenerife, two senators each in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla and two senators on the islands or archipelagos Ibiza-Formentera, Menorca, Fuerteventura, Gomera, Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma each elected a senator. A total of 208 senators are directly elected.
It was a choice of people. The voter can vote in the four-man constituencies for up to three, in the three- and two-man constituencies for up to two and in the one-man constituencies for one candidate, even spread over several nominations (" panaschieren "). The candidates with the highest number of votes are elected.
The other members of the Senate are determined by the parliaments of the autonomous communities, with each parliament appointing a senator for every 1,000,000 or so inhabitants of the respective community.
Candidacies
The nominations approved by the electoral committees were published in the State Bulletin (Boletín Oficial del Estado) on May 31, 2016 .
Left parties (Podemos, IU, Equo, En Comú Podem, En Marea, Compromís)
The traditional left-wing party Izquierda Unida (IU) and the new left-wing party Podemos in Catalonia and Galicia had already run together in the 2015 elections as part of the community candidates En Comú Podem and En Marea , but they ran against each other in the other constituencies. For the 2016 election, IU and Podemos together with the green party Equo formed the joint candidacy Unidos Podemos . This occurs nationwide except in Catalonia, Galicia and the Valencia region . In Catalonia and Galicia, the community candidates En Comú Podem and En Marea were reissued. In the Valencia region, the IU joined the Podemos-Compromís electoral alliance formed for the 2015 election . In the 2016 election, Podemos and IU will therefore not compete against each other in any constituency. The top candidate for Unidos Podemos is Podemos Secretary General Pablo Iglesias . Alberto Garzón (IU's top candidate in the 2015 election) ranks fifth on the list for the Madrid constituency.
PP and joint candidatures
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is again running as the top candidate for the conservative PP. The same community candidates exist as in the 2015 election: with the UPN in Navarra, with PAR in Aragon and with FAC in Asturias.
PSOE
As in the 2015 election, the top candidate of the social democratic PSOE was Pedro Sánchez . As in 2015, there was a joint candidacy with Nueva Canarias (NCa) in the Canaries . The PSOE leadership rejected efforts by individual regional associations to form joint candidates for election to the Senate with Podemos and the other left-wing parties.
Ciudadanos
As in the 2015 election, Albert Rivera was Ciudadanos' top candidate .
Catalan parties
The community candidacy Democràcia i Llibertat (election 2015) was not reissued, rather the bourgeois CDC stood alone.
Result
House of Representatives
The clear winner is the conservative PP of Prime Minister Rajoy. However, the starting position for the formation of a government is very similar to that after the 2015 election. Except for a grand coalition (PP / PSOE), none of the conceivable two-party coalitions (PP / Ciudadanos, PSOE / Podemos, PSOE / Ciudadanos) would have a majority in the House of Representatives.
Contrary to most pre-election polls, the PSOE was able to maintain its second place ahead of Unidos Podemos, but lost five seats.
The candidacies of the left-wing parties (Unidos Podemos, En Comú, En Marea, Podemos-Compromís-EUPV) lost a good 3% compared to the combined result of the Podemos candidacies and IU in the 2015 election and would therefore actually be the clear loser of the election. The fact that they were still able to hold the 71 seats that these parties won in the 2015 election is largely due to the electoral system, which disadvantages small nationwide parties (including the IU in 2015). The joint candidacy prevented this effect in the 2016 election.
In the 2016 election, however, Ciudadanos was affected by this effect of the electoral system. The only slight losses (0.89%) led to a loss of eight parliamentary seats. The 13% share of the vote resulted in a mandate share of only 9%.
The regional parties (ERC, CDC, PNV, EH Bildu, Coalición Canaria) succeeded in re-entering the House of Representatives, mostly in their previous strength. Only the PNV lost a seat.
The official final result of the election to the House of Representatives:
Eligible voters: 36,520,913
Voters: 24,279,259 (turnout: 66.48%)
invalid votes: 225,504
valid votes: 24,053,755
← Spanish parliamentary election, June 26, 2016 → | ||||||
Political party | be right | % Be right | Diff. | Seats | Diff. | annotation |
Partido Popular (PP) | 7,941,236 | 33.01 | +4.30 | 137 | +14 | 1 |
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) | 5,443,846 | 22.63 | +0.63 | 85 | −5 | 2 |
Unidos Podemos ( Podemos / IU / Equo)
En Comú Podem-Guanyem El Canvi (Podemos / ICV / EUiA / Barcelona en Comú ) Podemos- Compromís -EUPV En Marea (Podemos / IU / Anova) |
5,087,538 | 21.15 | −3.34 | 71 | ± 0 | 3 |
Ciudadanos (C's) | 3,141,570 | 13.06 | −0.88 | 32 | −8 | |
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) | 639.652 | 2.66 | +0.26 | 9 | ± 0 | 4th |
Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) | 483,488 | 2.01 | −0.24 | 8th | ± 0 | 5 |
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (EAJ-PNV) | 287.014 | 1.19 | −0.01 | 5 | −1 | 6th |
Partido Animalista Contra el Maltrato Animal (PACMA) | 286.702 | 1.19 | +0.32 | 0 | ± 0 | |
EH Bildu | 184.713 | 0.77 | −0.10 | 2 | ± 0 | |
Coalición Canaria - Partido Nacionalista Canario (CCa-PNC) | 78,253 | 0.33 | +0.01 | 1 | ± 0 | |
Geroa Bai | 14,343 | 0.06 | −0.06 | 0 | ± 0 | 7th |
VOX | 47,182 | 0.20 | -0.03 | 0 | ± 0 | |
other nominations | 286.319 | 1.19 | ||||
blank ballot 8 | 179,081 | 0.74 |
The result (votes and seats) in the individual autonomous communities (regions) and the two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla:
Total seats |
|||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Andalusia | 33.56% 23 |
31.24% 20 |
18.56% 11 |
13.58% 7 |
61 | ||||||||
Aragon | 35.89% 6 |
24.86% 4 |
19.68% 2 |
16.20% 1 |
13 | ||||||||
Asturias | 35.28% 3 |
24.48% 2 |
23.78% 2 |
12.63% 1 |
8th | ||||||||
Balearic Islands | 25.09% 3 |
20.10% 2 |
25.38% 2 |
14.57% 1 |
8th | ||||||||
Basque Country | 12.85% 2 |
14.24% 3 |
29.05% 6 |
4.09% 0 |
24.91% 5 |
13.30% 2 |
18th | ||||||
Extremadura | 39.94% 5 |
34.57% 4 |
13.04% 1 |
10.53% 0 |
10 | ||||||||
Galicia | 41.49% 12 |
22.25% 6 |
8.63% 0 |
22.18% 5 |
23 | ||||||||
Canaries | 34.07% 6 |
22.54% 3 |
20.24% 3 |
12.02% 2 |
7.99% 1 |
15th | |||||||
Cantabria | 41.56% 2 |
23.55% 1 |
17.69% 1 |
14.41% 1 |
5 | ||||||||
Castile-La Mancha | 42.79% 12 |
27.31% 7 |
14.64% 2 |
13.06% 0 |
21st | ||||||||
Castile and Leon | 44.33% 18 |
23.17% 9 |
15.50% 3 |
14.15% 1 |
31 | ||||||||
Catalonia | 13.36% 6 |
16.12% 7 |
10.93% 5 |
24.51% 12 |
18.17% 9 |
13.92% 8 |
47 | ||||||
La Rioja | 42.63% 2 |
24.33% 1 |
16.58% 1 |
13.98% 0 |
4th | ||||||||
Madrid | 38.27% 15 |
19.62% 7 |
21.23% 8 |
17.75% 6 |
36 | ||||||||
Murcia | 46.74% 5 |
20.29% 2 |
14.39% 1 |
15.69% 2 |
10 | ||||||||
Navarre | 31.88% 2 |
17.36% 1 |
28.33% 2 |
6.09% 0 |
9.38% 0 |
5 | |||||||
Valencia | 35.49% 13 |
20.81% 6 |
14.96% 5 |
25.37% 9 |
33 | ||||||||
Ceuta | 51.91% 1 |
22.60% 0 |
10.90% 0 |
11.52% 0 |
1 | ||||||||
Melilla | 49.90% 1 |
24.64% 0 |
9.77% 0 |
12.38% 0 |
1 |
Factions
The following fractions were formed:
- PP (Grupo Parlamentario Popular) : 134 members
- PSOE (Grupo Parlamentario Socialista) : 84 members
- Unidos Podemos (Grupo Parlamentario Confederal de Unidos Podemos-En Comú Podem-En Marea) : 67 members
- Ciudadanos (Grupo Parlamentario Ciudadanos) : 32 members
- ERC (Grupo Parlamentario de Esquerra Republicana) : 9 members
- EAJ-PNV (Grupo Parlamentario Vasco - EAJ-PNV) : 5 members
According to the House of Representatives' rules of procedure, the other members of parliament are grouped together in the Grupo Mixto ("mixed parliamentary group"). So these are MEPs who have not joined a political group or have not been accepted by any political group. This also includes MPs from parties who do not meet the minimum requirements (mandates or share of votes) for forming a parliamentary group. The Grupo Mixto currently has 19 MPs (the eight MPs of the CDC, the four MPs from Compromís elected via the community list with Podemos and IU , the two MPs from EH Bildu, the two UPN MPs elected through the community candidacy with the PP, one A member of FAC elected via the community candidacy with the PP, the one member from NCa elected via the community candidacy with the PSOE and the member of the CCa).
senate
The Senate is made up of members directly elected by the people and other senators who are determined by the parliaments of the individual autonomous communities (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).
In the 12th legislature the Senate consists of 266 members: 208 directly elected and 58 delegated by the regional parliaments.
For direct voting, the electoral area is divided into 59 constituencies . These are the 47 mainland provinces (with four senators each - regardless of population size), the island constituencies of Gran Canaria, Mallorca and Tenerife (three senators each), Ibiza-Formentera, Menorca, Fuerteventura, Gomera, Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma (one senator each) and the two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla (two senators each), resulting in a total of 208 directly elected senators. It is a question of a person choice. The voter can vote in the four-man constituencies for up to three, in the three- and two-man constituencies for up to two and in the one-man constituencies for one candidate, even spread over several election proposals (" panaschieren "). The candidates with the highest number of votes are elected. The parties only put up the number of candidates in the constituencies that corresponds to the number of votes that the voter has (in four-man constituencies that is three) in order to prevent the potential for voters from being split up. This, and the fact that most voters cast their votes as one group to the candidates of their preferred party, means that the ratio of the seats won by the strongest party to those of the second strongest party in the vast majority of cases in the four-man constituencies 3 : 1, in the three-man constituencies 2: 1 and in the two-man constituencies 2: 0. In the 2016 elections, this was not the case in the province of Gipuzcoa (PNV and Unidos Podemos each with two senators). There is therefore a form of majority voting (see elections in Spain ), which explains the absolute majority of the PP in the Senate in the 2016 election.
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 is shown below:
← Composition Senate, XII. Legislature → | ||||
Political party |
Senators total |
Senators direct election |
Senators indirectly |
annotation |
Partido Popular (PP) | 151 | 130 | 21st | 1 |
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) | 63 | 43 | 20th | 2 |
Unidos Podemos (Podemos / IU / Equo)
En Comú (Podemos / ICV / EUiA / Barcelona en Comú ) En Marea (Podemos / IU / Anova) Podemos- Compromís -EUPV |
23 | 16 | 7th | 3 |
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) | 12 | 10 | 2 | 4th |
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (EAJ-PNV) | 6th | 5 | 1 | |
Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) | 4th | 2 | 2 | |
Coalición Canaria - Partido Nacionalista Canario (CCa-PNC) | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Agrupación Socialista Gomera (ASG) | 1 | 1 | 0 | |
Ciudadanos | 3 | 0 | 3 | |
EH Bildu | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Others
On June 23, 2016, three days before the elections in Spain, a referendum took place in Great Britain on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union . The parliamentary elections in Spain were the first parliamentary elections in a European country after the narrow (51.9% to 48.1%) Brexit vote.
Government formation
legal framework
According to the Spanish Constitution, only the House of Representatives is relevant for forming a government: it elects the Prime Minister (Art. 99), the government is responsible only to him (Art. 108).
After exploratory talks with the parties represented in the House of Representatives, the King makes a proposal to the House of Representatives for the office of Prime Minister. The constitution does not specify a deadline for this. This proposal will be voted on after debate, in accordance with the rules of procedure of the House of Representatives in a public roll-call vote, in which the MPs can vote with yes, no or abstention. If the candidate receives an absolute majority (i.e. at least 176 yes-votes), he is elected Prime Minister. If he misses this majority, a second ballot takes place 48 hours later, in which a simple majority is sufficient (more yes than no votes, regardless of the number of abstentions).
If the nominee is not successful in the second ballot either, further proposals will be dealt with in the same way (i.e. with two ballots if necessary).
If two months have passed after the first round of voting on the first proposal without a candidate being elected Prime Minister, both chambers will be dissolved by the King and new elections will be held.
A prime minister, once elected, can only be overthrown by a constructive vote of no confidence; H. by the House of Representatives electing another Prime Minister with an absolute majority (Art. 113 of the Constitution).
Starting position and further development
Starting position
The starting point for forming a government was just as difficult as after the previous election. Apart from a grand coalition (PP / PSOE) or a PP / Unidos Podemos coalition (which, however, is likely to withdraw), no two-party alliance had a majority.
In contrast to the 2015 election, there was a majority of the “bourgeois” parties (PP, Ciudadanos, CDC, PNV, Coalición Canaria, together 183 seats) in the newly elected parliament, but the Catalan CDC continued to fall due to its independence course as a majority procurer for one PP-led government.
PP / Ciudadanos agreement and Rajoy's first attempt
Prime Minister Rajoy started talks with the other parties on forming a government in early July 2016.
The newly elected chambers were constituted on July 19, 2016 . With the support of Ciudadanos, the previous Minister of Construction and Transport Ana Pastor (PP) was elected President of the House of Representatives. Pío García-Escudero (PP) remained President of the Senate.
From July 26 to 28, 2016, the King held exploratory talks with representatives of the parties. He then proposed incumbent Rajoy for the office of Prime Minister.
On August 28, 2016, PP and Ciudadanos came to a political agreement that a. included Ciudadanos voting for Rajoy in the prime ministerial election. In the first ballot on August 31, 2016, Rajoy received 170 votes (PP, Ciudadanos , UPN, FAC, Coalición Canaria ) and 180 votes against (PSOE, Unidos Podemos , ERC, EAJ-PNV, CDC, Compromís , EH Bildu , Nueva Canarias ) . As expected, the necessary absolute majority was not achieved. The second ballot ended with the same result on September 2, 2016, so that the simple majority required in this one was not achieved either.
Leadership crisis in the PSOE and change of course
PSOE General Secretary Pedro Sánchez pursued the line of voting against Rajoy in another attempt and not allowing the PP to form a government by abstaining, and instead sought negotiations on a left-wing government with Podemos, supported by regional parties, which he opposed major party members such as former Prime Ministers González and Zapatero turned. After the poor performance of the PSOE in the regional elections in the Basque Country and Galicia on September 25, 2016, criticism of Sánchez increased from within the party. First, 17 members of the party executive announced their resignation in protest. Sánchez then wrestled for several days with the party, which was split into two camps, one of which no longer recognized him, and wanted to convene a party convention for the election of the general secretary in early October so that his course could be confirmed. After the defeat in the party council (comité federal) on this measure with 107 to 132 votes, Sánchez resigned as general secretary. A ten-member “executive commission” (comisión gestora) was appointed, which was to lead the PSOE until the next party congress and which was chaired by the Prime Minister of Asturias Javier Fernández .
At the meeting of the party council on October 23, 2016, it was decided to enable Rajoy to form a government by abstaining from voting for his election as prime minister.
Election of Rajoy as Prime Minister
After this change of course by the PSOE, the king again proposed Mariano Rajoy for the office of prime minister. The first ballot on this renewed proposal on October 27, 2016 produced the same result as the ballots on August 31 and September 2, 2016 (170 votes in favor, 180 against). In the second ballot on October 29, 2016, Rajoy obtained a simple majority sufficient for his election due to an abstention from the PSOE parliamentary group. He again received 170 votes (PP, Ciudadanos , UPN, FAC, Coalición Canaria ) with 111 against ( Unidos Podemos , ERC, EAJ-PNV, CDC, Compromís , EH Bildu , Nueva Canarias, the 7 MPs of the PSC and 8 other MPs the PSOE Group) and 68 abstentions (remainder of the PSOE Group). The resigned PSOE General Secretary Pedro Sánchez resigned his mandate shortly before the ballot in protest and therefore did not take part in the vote.
Trivia
Polling stations in Spain open at nine in the morning. In the small town of Villarroya in La Rioja , all six eligible voters appeared punctually at nine o'clock, which is why the electoral committee was allowed to close the election at 9:02 a.m. However, this did not set a record, because in the 2015 election the polling station was allowed to close again at 9 a.m. after all eligible voters had voted.
In May 2016, the regional government of Castile-Leon prohibited the killing of bulls in popular bull hunting. This affected the Torneo del Toro de la Vega in Tordesillas . This hunt, in which lancers on horseback or on foot stab a bull with their lances until it dies in the fields in front of the city gates, is one of the most controversial bull spectacles in Spain. Opponents of the ban on the killing of the bull called for the ballot in the parliamentary election to be invalidated. While the proportion of invalid votes was less than 1% nationwide, it was 13% in Tordesillas.
Web links
- Homepage of the Junta Electoral Central (Central Electoral Committee) - u. a. Legal texts (Spanish; electoral law also in English)
- Website of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior on the elections
Individual evidence
- ↑ juntaelectoralcentral.es
- ↑ Conservative Rajoy elected Spanish Prime Minister. Accessed October 29, 2016 ( tagesschau.de ).
- ↑ Real Decreto 184/2016, de 3 de mayo, de disolución del Congreso de los Diputados y del Senado y de convocatoria de elecciones. (PDF) In: Boletín Oficial del Estado. May 3, 2016, Retrieved May 3, 2016 (Spanish).
- ↑ Candidaturas proclamadas para las elecciones al Congreso de los Diputados y al Senado, convocadas por Real Decreto 184/2016, de 3 de mayo. (PDF) In: Boletín Oficial del Estado. May 31, 2016, accessed May 31, 2016 (Spanish).
- ↑ Junta Electoral Central: official final result. (PDF) In: Boletín Oficial del Estado. July 22, 2016, Retrieved August 1, 2016 (Spanish).
- ^ Website of the Spanish House of Representatives. Retrieved August 3, 2016 .
- ↑ FAZ.net / Leo Wieland: Brexit strengthens Spain's conservatives
- ↑ FAZ.net / Leo Wieland: Spain has heard the Brexit signals (comment)