Spanish general election, 2011

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—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, nationals meeting the previous criteria and not involved in any cause of ineligibility were eligible for both the Congress and the Senate. 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 1% of registered electors in a particular district in order to be able to field candidates, whereas parties and coalitions left out from both chambers in the previous election were required to obtain the signatures of at least 0.1% of registered electors in the districts they intended to contest.

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.

Background

The 2008 general election had resulted in a victory for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which nonetheless fell 7 seats short of an absolute majority. The Socialists had been re-elected on a full employment platform, despite the Spanish economy showing signs of fatigue and economic slowdown after a decade of growth. As a result, Zapatero was sworn in as Prime Minister of Spain for a second term in office in April 2008. Zapatero's second term would be dominated by the 2008–11 economic and financial crisis.

2008–09: First years

The effects of the economic crisis in Spain started to become apparent at the beginning of Zapatero's second term. The first measure adopted by the newly elected government to mitigate the economic slowdown was an injection of €10 billion into the Spanish economy, of which €6 billion were to fulfill a €400 tax reduction as part of the PSOE 2008 election pledges. Over the next months the government was forced to lower its economic growth forecast for 2008 from 3.1% to 2.3%, then to 1.6%. The government also had to cope with a transport strike on 9–15 June, motivated by a rapid increase in oil prices. Zapatero initially refused to publicly acknowledge the existence of the economic crisis, to which he referred as "intense temporary slowdown" or "economic weaknesses". On 23 June 2008, Zapatero's cabinet adopted an "austerity plan" intended to save €250 million—consisting of a 70% reduction in the public job offer and a salary freeze for senior public servants—as well as financial stimulus measures—injection of €35 billion to SMEs and €2.5 billion annually until 2010 to improve the efficiency in the hotel sector—in order to soften the impact of job losses and rising oil prices, with Zapatero finally acknowledging the crisis during an interview on 8 July. Meanwhile, Martinsa-Fadesa bankruptcy filling in July 2008 as a result of the Spanish property bubble bursting turned into Spain's biggest ever corporate default.

Job destruction in Spain became increasingly noticeable: by August 2008 2.5 million were already unemployed, the highest figure in 10 years. By December 2008, Spain would become the country with the highest job destruction rate in the world, with unemployment nearing 3 million. In October 2008, the government announced a €100 billion guarantee for bank debts and the creation of a €30 billion worth fund—extendable to €50 billion—to purchase 'healthy' assets from banks and savings banks "to ensure the Spanish market liquidity". From November 2008 to January 2009, the government proposed a €50 billion stimulus plan—with €8 billion destined to public investment in municipalities—expected to create 300,000 jobs throughout 2009, which was later criticised for its spending unsustainability and for creating "unproductive" jobs. In Q4 2008 the Spanish economy officially went into recession after a GDP fall of 1.1%—having already fallen by 0.3% on Q3 2008—putting an end to 15 years of uninterrupted economic growth.

On 28 March 2009, the Spanish government launched a €9 billion bailout to rescue Caja Castilla La Mancha, the first Spanish savings bank to be intervened during the crisis, to be followed by CajaSur in 2010, the nationalization of CAM, Unnim, CatalunyaCaixa and Novagalicia Banco in 2011 and the intervention and nationalization of Banco de Valencia in 2011–12. As part of the bank restructuring, the FOBR was created in June 2009 to preside over the mergers and acquisitions of the failing savings banks. In April 2009, Pedro Solbes was replaced as Spain's Economy and Finance Minister by the low-profile Elena Salgado as part of a major cabinet reshuffle, in a move seen as Zapatero seeking to take more direct control of economic policy himself.

By Q2 2009, unemployment had grown to 17.9%—more than 4 million unemployed—and the GDP had fallen by 4.2%. This prompted Zapatero to announce on 28 August 2009 that the 2010 budget would include a "limited and temporary" tax increase worth €16 billion—dubbed by many as the largest tax rise in history—to tackle the revenue fall and spending increase resulting from the crisis. Further measures, such as the suppression of the €400 tax reduction and a VAT increase from 16% to 18%—in its standard rate—and from 7% to 8%—in its reduced rate—were announced in the following weeks. The end of 2009 would see unemployment climbing to 18.8%, with public deficit soaring—11.4% of GDP—and forcing the government to approve on 29 January 2010 a €50 billion worth-savings plan for the 2010–13 period, cutting all public spending except for social benefits, welfare state policies and those involving a production model renewal.

2010: Zapatero's U-turn

However, despite the government's efforts, the economic situation kept worsening. On 5 February, Spain's risk premium reached the 100 basis point-mark in a black week for Madrid Stock Exchange—with the IBEX 35 falling by 9.3%. By early May 2010, unemployment had reached the 20% mark for the first time since the 1993 economic crisis, while the crisis in Greece, threatening to engulf the remained of the eurozone, caused the risk premium to rise dramatically by 60% to 170 basis points and the Madrid Stock Exchange to fall by 10%. As a result, Zapatero announced a €15 billion austerity package on 12 May aimed at preventing the country's default. Among the adopted measures were a cut of 5% in public wages, a pension freezing for 2011, cuts into dependency spending and the removal of the €2,500 birth allowance, among others. Zapatero's U-turn, breaching a previous pledge not to cut social spending, caused his and the PSOE's popularity ratings to plummet in opinion polls.

On 9 September 2010, the PSOE government approved a labor reform, which included suspension of collective agreements during economic downturns, a lower redundancy pay in cases of wrongful dismissal—from 45 to 33 days per year worked—or cheaper dismissals for companies facing losses, among others. The reform, coupled with the cut in public wages and the pension freeze, provoked the Socialist government to face its first general strike on 29 September. In order to tackle dropping poll numbers, a major cabinet reshuffle took place on 20 October, resulting in a number of ministries being disbanded and long-time First Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega being replaced by Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. The risk premium kept growing and peaked at 270 basis points by the end of November. Zapatero's government announced a new austerity package on 1 December—including the removal of a €426 allowance for long-term unemployed and the privatizations of AENA and the Lotteries—but also a tax cut for SMEs. In the following weeks, Zapatero would also announce an increase of the retirement age from 65 to 67 to be applied "flexibly and progressively" until 2027.

Outcome

With an overall voter turnout of 68.9%—the lowest in a decade—the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) suffered its worst ever defeat in a general election, while also scoring one of the worst electoral performances for a ruling party in Spain since the UCD collapse in the 1982 election. The People's Party (PP) was able to win an historic absolute majority with 186 out of 350 seats—the largest obtained by a party since 1982—after almost eight years in opposition. The PSOE went on to finish below first place in all but two provinces—Barcelona and Seville—while also losing both Andalusia and Catalonia, which up to that point had been carried by the PSOE in every general election. The 2011 Spanish election marked the continuation of a string of severe government election losses across European countries since the start of the 2007–08 financial crisis, including Iceland, Greece, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Ireland or Portugal.

Minoritary national parties, such as United Left (IU) and Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD), benefitted greatly from the PSOE collapse, winning 11 and 5 seats respectively—2 and 1 in the previous parliament. This was the first time since the 1989 election than more than one of the smaller nationwide-contesting parties obtained more than 1 million votes in a general election, as well as enough seats to form parliamentary groups on their own right. The PSOE collapse also resulted in nearly all parties winning parliamentary presence in the Congress of Deputies increasing their vote shares—only Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Geroa Bai (GBai) lost votes compared to 2008. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) lost 1 seat despite scoring higher than in 2008, but this came as a result of Amaiur's irruption, with 6 out of its 7 seats being elected in the Basque Country.

Convergence and Union (CiU), the party federation formed by Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC), was elected to an historic general election victory in the region of Catalonia. The Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), PSOE's sister party in the region—which had, up until that point, been the first Catalan political force in every general election held since 1977—scored a poor showing by finishing in second place with 27% of the vote. The 2011 election would be the last time both parties would dominate the Catalan political landscape in a general election; the next election, held on 20 December 2015, would see the alliance between CDC and UDC broken and the PSC being crushed to third place regionally by both the En Comú Podem alliance and ERC.

In terms of vote share, PSOE's electoral result, with 28.76%, would remain the worst electoral performance for a sitting Spanish government in a nationwide-held election since 1982 until the European Parliament election, 2014 held two and a half years later, when the PP obtained 26.09% of the share, and in a general election until 2015—the PP obtaining 28.71%.

Investiture

On 20 December 2011, Mariano Rajoy was elected in the first round of voting as Prime Minister with an absolute majority of votes (187 out of 350) in the Congress.