24 May 2015 2019 → 6 March 2015 21 February 2015 72 seats, 51.7% 36 seats, 26.3% | Registered 4,880,495 5.6% 21 February 2015 1 April 2015 Start date May 24, 2015 | |
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Turnout 3,205,931 (65.7%)
0.2 pp Winner Cristina Cifuentes | ||
The 2015 Madrilenian parliamentary election was held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 10th Assembly of Madrid, the regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community of Madrid. All 129 seats in the Assembly were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in 12 other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
Contents
The ruling People's Party (PP) emerged once again as the largest political force in the region, but it saw a substantial drop in its vote support and the loss of the absolute majority it had held almost uninterruptedly since 1995—with a brief interlude in 2003—. However, as both the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and newcomer Podemos fell one seat short of an absolute majority, it meant that the PP could remain in government through an agreement with liberal Citizens (C's). As a result, Cristina Cifuentes became the new President of the Community of Madrid, forming a minority government with C's providing confidence and supply. Cifuentes would be the third regional President in three years, after Esperanza Aguirre's resignation in 2012 and incumbent President Ignacio González not running for the office as a result of several scandals.
The strong performance of both Podemos and C's was at the expense of left-wing United Left (IU)—which lost its parliamentary representation for the first time in history as a result of not reaching the required 5% threshold—and Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD), whose parliamentary presence was ephemeral having only entered the regional parliament in 2011 for the first time.
Background
After the 2011 regional election, the People's Party was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term in office with an absolute majority of seats, with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party under Tomás Gómez obtaining the worst result of its history in the region. President Esperanza Aguirre, which had renewed the office for a third term (Aguirre had succeeded Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón as regional premier in 2003), resigned on 17 September 2012, allegedly a result of health issues, but also for "personal reasons". She was succeeded in the Presidency by her Deputy, Ignacio González.
Opinion polls from 2012 predicted a drop in vote support for the People's Party, to the point that it could lose the absolute majority it had enjoyed from 2003. The same polls had shown that the PSOE remained unable to capitalize on the PP government electoral wear. On the 2014 European Parliament election, both parties obtained historic lows: with 29.9%, the People's Party result in the region was the lowest since the 1989 election, while PSOE's result at 18.9% was the party's lowest score ever. Newly created party Podemos was able to poll at 11.3%, placing itself as the third political force of the community and within striking distance of the PSOE. Podemos' growth in opinion polls since mid-to-late 2014 at the expense of PSOE's vote spectrum inspired fears within the party that it could be displaced to third place both regionally and nationally, thus ceasing to be the main reference party of the left ideology in both Spain and Madrid.
On 11 February 2015, PSOE Secretary-General Pedro Sánchez removed Tomás Gómez, PSM candidate for the 2015 election, from the party's regional leadership. The decision came, allegedly, after suspicions of Gómez being involved in a tram project corruption scandal during his time as Mayor of Parla, though electoral motives may have helped hasten the move, as Gómez was deemed a bad candidate as Rafael Simancas later recognized. Ángel Gabilondo, former Education Minister in José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Cabinet from 2009 to 2011, was selected as PSM-PSOE candidate replacing Gómez on 21 February 2015.
In United Left, Tania Sánchez, elected as party's presidential candidate in a primary election held on 1 December 2014, had left the party on 4 February 2015 alongside a number of supporters, over an internal conflict with the party's regional leadership, involved in the Caja Madrid "black" credit cards scandal. Luis García Montero, a Spanish poet and literary critic, was selected to replace Sánchez' as IU candidate to the Community of Madrid.
The People's Party had not yet proclaimed a candidate as of February 2015, despite incumbent President Ignacio González being widely presumed to stand for a second term in office. On 2 March 2015, Spanish newspaper El Mundo's headlines pointed out that González' had asked National Police officers to withhold information over an ongoing investigation on him about a possible tax fraud in the purchase of a luxury penthouse. González announced that he was the victim of policial 'blackmail' and reiterated his wish to be his party's candidate for the 2015 election. However, rumours arose in the media that the party's leadership had withdrawn their support from González and expected him to eventually give up on his intention to run. Finally, on 6 March 2015, incumbent Government Delegate in Madrid Cristina Cifuentes was chosen as PP candidate for the autonomous community, while former regional President Esperanza Aguirre was named as candidate to the Madrid City Council.
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 2015 election was the corresponding to year 2014 (6,454,440), the Assembly size was set to 129. 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—however, amendments to the electoral law in 2011 required for Spaniards abroad to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "requested" or expat vote (Spanish: Voto rogado)—. Concurrently, residents meeting the previous criteria and not involved in any cause of ineligibility were eligible for the Assembly. Gender quotas were introduced in 2007, requiring for party lists to be composed of at least 40% of candidates of either gender and for each group of five candidates to contain at least two males and two females. 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.
A 1998 amendment to the Statute of Autonomy granted the President the ability to dissolve the chamber and call a snap election, but limiting the exercise of such prerogative to the second or third years of the legislature. 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. 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 likewise.
Opinion polls
Individual poll results are listed in the table below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first, and using the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. If such date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed with its background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance of a tie, the figures with the highest percentages are shaded. Seat projections are displayed in bold and in a different font. The lead column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the two parties with the highest figures. 65 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Assembly of Madrid.
Exit poll