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Spanish general election, 1993

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6 June 1993
  
1996 →

28 September 1979
  
4 September 1989

177 seats, 40.1%
  
107 seats, 25.8%

Registered
  
31,030,511 4.8%

4 September 1989
  
12 February 1989

Start date
  
June 6, 1993

Spanish general election, 1993 httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Turnout
  
23,718,816 (76.4%) 6.7 pp

Winner
  
Felipe González

The 1993 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 6 June 1993, to elect the 5th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 256 seats in the Senate.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party under Felipe González achieved the largest number of votes and seats for the fourth consecutive time, though it lost its absolute majority in both chambers of the Cortes. In contrast, José María Aznar's People's Party won a large share of the vote, thus increasing their seats in both the Congress and the Senate and consolidating its position as the main opposition party. For the first time since 1979, the election brought in a hung parliament, forcing the governing PSOE to pact with nationalist groups in order to renew their mandate.

In the aftermath of the election, the PSOE saw itself under increased pressure due both to political instability as a result of its low majority (relying on increasingly unstable pacts with Convergence and Union to pass its legislation) and of the uncovering of numerous cases of corruption within the government itself. The pact with CiU would end in the fall of 1995, forcing PM Felipe González to call early elections 15 months before their scheduled date, which would see the opposition right-wing People's Party of Aznar win for the first time.

Electoral system

The Spanish Cortes Generales were regarded as an imperfect bicameral system. The Congress of Deputies had greater legislative power than the Senate, having the ability to grant or revoke confidence from a Prime Minister and to override Senate vetoes by an absolute majority of votes. Nonetheless, the Senate possessed a few exclusive, yet limited in number functions—such as its role in constitutional amendment—which were not subject to the Congress' override.

For the Congress of Deputies, 348 seats were allocated to 50 multi-member districts—each corresponding to a province—, elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation. Ceuta and Melilla elected one member each using plurality voting, for a total of 350 seats. Each district was entitled to an initial minimum of two seats, with the remaining 248 allocated among the 50 provinces in proportion to their populations. A threshold of 3% of valid votes—which included blank ballots—was applied in each constituency, with parties not reaching the threshold not taken into consideration for seat distribution.

For the Senate, each of the 47 peninsular constituencies was allocated four seats. For insular provinces, such as the Balearic and the Canary Islands, districts were the islands themselves, with the larger—Majorca, Gran Canaria and Tenerife—being allocated three seats each, and the smaller—Menorca, Ibiza-Formentera, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, El Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma—one each. Ceuta and Melilla elected two seats each, for a total of 208 directly elected seats, using an open list partial block voting. Instead of voting for parties, electors would vote for individual candidates. In districts electing four seats, electors could vote for up to three candidates; in those with two or three seats, for up to two candidates; and for one candidate in single-member constituencies. Additionally, autonomous communities could appoint at least one senator each and were entitled to one additional seat per each million inhabitants.

Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage, with all nationals over eighteen and in the full enjoyment of all political rights entitled to vote. Concurrently, nationals meeting the previous criteria and not involved in any cause of ineligibility were eligible for both the Congress and the Senate. Groups of electors were required to obtain the signatures of at least 1% of registered electors in a particular district in order to be able to field candidates.

The Prime Minister had the ability to dissolve the chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election; otherwise, elected deputies and senators served for four year terms, starting from election day. Additionally, both chambers were to be automatically dissolved in the event of unsuccessful investiture attempts failing to elect a Prime Minister within a two month-period from the first ballot, triggering a snap election likewise.

References

Spanish general election, 1993 Wikipedia