Balearic parliamentary election, 2015

The 2015 Balearic parliamentary election was held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 9th Parliament of the Balearic Islands, the unicameral regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The election was held concurrently with the regional elections for 12 other autonomous communities, as well as the 2015 municipal elections.

Contents

• Electoral system
• Vote
• Seat projections
• References

All 59 seats in the Parliament were up for election, determining the President of the Balearic Islands. Voting was in four electoral districts corresponding to the islands of Majorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera. Majorca elected thirty three members, Menorca thirteen, Ibiza twelve and Formentera one.

Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The electoral system used was closed list proportional representation with seats allocated in each electoral district using the D'Hondt method. Only lists which polled at least 5% of the votes in a particular district (including votes "en blanco" i.e. for "none of the above") were eligible for seats.

In the 2011 election, the People's Party, led by José Ramón Bauzà regained their majority. A series of controversial and unpopular decrees and laws proceeded, the most discussed ones involving the language of the Balearic Islands—Catalan in its island dialects—and the education. These generated record-attendance demonstrations, the most important one on 27 September, 2013, when more than 70,000 people demonstrated in Palma protesting, amongst others, against the changes in the language decree. It established more school-hours in Spanish and English, when the majority of public schools and their teachers were not prepared to carry it out.

In addition, the Spanish politics were observing the growth of new parties like We Can in the left and young parties like Citizens in the center-right. In the Balearic Islands politics, the Socialist Party of Majorca formed a coalition with Initiative Greens and Nationalist Agreement in Majorca and Minorca called More. The disbanded Majorcan Union had resulted in two parties with similar political views in the 2011 election: Convergence for the Isles—the political heir of Majorcan Union—and Regionalist League of the Balearic Islands—a split party with critics of Majorcan Union—. They both united to create a new party called Proposal for the Isles to contest in the 2015 election not only in Majorca, but also in Minorca and Ibiza.

All in all, it resulted in the loss of the parliamentary majority by the People's Party in the Balearic Islands. The Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands also saw losses, but could form a government led by socialist Francina Armengol with More—that obtained its best historical result—and the outer support of We Can—being the third party in number of parliamentary seats—. It was the first time that parties from the left had a majority of seats in the Balearic parliament. Opposition, along with the People's Party, was formed by Proposal for the Isles and Citizens, both obtaining their whole representation in Majorca, but being close to another seat in Ibiza—in the case of Proposal for the Isles—and Minorca—where Ciutadella de Menorca People's Union represented the Minorcan branch of Citizens—.