26 May 1991 1995 → 8 February 1987 14 December 1979 32 seats, 31.8% 40 seats, 38.4% | Registered 3,827,972 8.9% 14 December 1979 1987 | |
 | ||
Turnout 2,251,613 (58.8%)
11.1 pp Winner Joaquín Leguina | ||
The 1991 Madrilenian parliamentary election was held on Sunday, 26 May 1991, to elect the 3rd Assembly of Madrid, the regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community of Madrid. All 101 seats in the Assembly were up for election, an increase of five compared to the previous election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in 12 other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
Contents
The election saw the electoral collapse of the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), which fell below the 5% threshold and lost all their 17 seats. Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón's People's Party (PP) emerged as the largest party in the community for the first time, but was unable to form a government due to the lack of allies as a result of CDS expulsion from the Assembly. Consequently, Joaquín Leguina from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) was re-elected President for a third term in office thanks to the support of United Left (IU).
Background
The 1987 election had resulted in a parliamentary deadlock. The opposition bloc of the People's Alliance (AP) and the CDS held 49 seats against 47 for the PSOE and IU. The ruling PSOE was initially able to hold on to power and have Joaquín Leguina re-elected President thanks to CDS' abstention, but nonetheless the government's majority remained precarious.
In 1988, an AP deputy, Nicolás Piñeiro Cuesta, resigned from the party as a result of ideological differences with the Madrid AP leader, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón. Piñeiro launched his own party, the Independent Madrilenian Regional Party (PRIM), shortly after. Thereafter, in January 1989, AP along with other parties merged into the newly-created People's Party (PP).
In the first half of 1989, the PP and the CDS reached an agreement of cooperation in the Madrid Assembly, resulting in a motion of no confidence against Leguina's government in June 1989, in an attempt to replace it with a PP-CDS administration headed by Ruiz-Gallardón as Madrid President. To succeed, the motion needed the support of a majority of members, meaning that 49 votes were needed. With the PP and CDS having 48 members, Piñeiro's support was necessary. However, he abstained, and the United Left members blocked the motion alongside PSOE, resulting in the vote failing.
Electoral system
The Assembly of Madrid was elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation. Under the regional Statute of Autonomy, the Assembly was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants or fraction greater than 25,000, according to the most updated census data. As the updated population census for the 1991 election was the corresponding to year 1990 (5,028,120), the Assembly size was set to 101. All seats were allocated to a single multi-member district, with a threshold of 5% of valid votes—which included blank ballots—. Parties not reaching the threshold were not taken into consideration for the seat distribution.
Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage, with all residents over eighteen and in the full enjoyment of all political rights entitled to vote. Concurrently, residents meeting the previous criteria and not involved in any cause of ineligibility were eligible for the Assembly. Groups of electors were required to obtain the signatures of at least 0.5% of registered electors in the district in order to be able to field candidates.
As per the Statute of Autonomy, the Assembly was to be automatically dissolved in the event of unsuccessful investiture attempts failing to elect a regional President within a two month-period from the first ballot, triggering a snap election. Elections were fixed for the fourth Sunday of May every four years, with early dissolutions not changing the period to the next ordinary election, meaning that elected deputies in a snap election merely served out what remained of their ordinary four-year parliamentary terms.