8 May 1983 1987 → Turnout 283,197 (73.4%) 1977 1983 | Registered 384,993 1983 1977 18 15 | |
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The 1983 Cantabrian parliamentary election was held on Sunday, 8 May 1983, to elect the 1st Regional Assembly of Cantabria, the regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria. All 35 seats in the Regional Assembly were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in 12 other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
The election was won by the People's Coalition, an electoral alliance led by the People's Alliance (AP) and also including the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Liberal Union (UL), with an absolute majority of seats. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) came second with 15 seats, while the Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC) entered the Assembly with 2 seats.
As a result, AP candidate José Antonio Rodríguez Martínez was elected as regional President. Rodríguez, however, resigned on 2 March 1984 as a result of political discrepancies with AP, being replaced by Ángel Díaz de Entresotos until the end of the legislature.
Electoral system
The number of seats in the Regional Assembly of Cantabria was set to 35 for the 1983-1987 period. All Assembly members were elected in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Community's territory (the province of Cantabria), using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system. As the community had not passed an electoral law of its own at the time, the electoral system came regulated under Royal Decree 451/1983.
Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the community (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) were entitled to enter the seat distribution.