25 May 2003 2007 → 4 September 1989 22 July 2000 24,623 seats, 34.4% 21,917 seats, 34.3% | Registered 34,386,462 2.4% 22 July 2000 7 January 2002 | |
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Turnout 23,270,072 (67.7%)
3.7 pp | ||
The 2003 Spanish local elections were held on Sunday, 25 May 2003, throughout all 8,108 Spain municipalities, simultaneously with regional elections in 13 of the 17 autonomous communities—all except for Andalusia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Galicia. All 65,510 councillors were up for election, as well as 153 seats of the 3 Basque Juntas Generales, 149 seats of the 7 Canarian cabildos and the indirectly-elected 1,036 seats of the 38 provincial deputations.
Contents
Local councils
The number of seats in each 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.
All city council members were elected in single multi-member districts, consisting of the municipality's territory, 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.
Provincial deputations
The provincial deputations were elected indirectly by a council which in turn was elected from the judicial districts. The apportionment of deputies per province depends on population and was given as follows: