13 June 1999 2003 → 10 October 1986 28 June 1998 30 seats, 52.7% 16 seats, 27.8% | Registered 2,488,296 1.6% 28 June 1998 23 June 1998 | |
 | ||
Turnout 1,494,090 (60.0%)
11.2 pp Winner José María Álvarez d | ||
The 1999 Madrid City Council election was held on Sunday, 13 June 1999, to elect the 6th Madrid City Council, the unicameral local legislature of the municipality of Madrid. At stake were all seats in the City Council, determining the Mayor of Madrid. The number of members decreased from 55 to 53 compared to the previous election.
The People's Party (PP) won an absolute majority of seats for a third consecutive time, but, for the first time since the 1987 election the party lost votes and seats. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) maintained its second place but reverted the decline it had been suffering since 1983. PSOE gains came at the expense of United Left (IU), which lost nearly half of its votes and seats.
As a result, José María Álvarez del Manzano was elected as Mayor of Madrid for a third term in office.
Electoral system
The number of seats in the Madrid City Council was determined by the population count. According to the municipal electoral law, the population-seat relationship on each municipality was to be established on the following scale:
Additionally, for populations greater than 100,000, 1 seat was to be added per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction, according to the most updated census data, and adding 1 more seat if the resulting seat count gives an even number. As the updated population census for the 1999 election was 2,881,506, the Madrid City Council size was set to 53 seats.
All City Council members were elected in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Madrid municipality, using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system. Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the municipality (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) were entitled to enter the seat distribution.
The Spanish municipal electoral law established a clause stating that, if no candidate was to gather an absolute majority of votes to be elected as mayor of a municipality, the candidate of the most-voted party would be automatically elected to the post.