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Spanish regional elections, 2015

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Registered
  
19,794,301 2.5%

26 July 2014
  
15 November 2014

261 seats, 28.8%
  
Did not stand

Location
  
Spain

2 September 2003
  
26 July 2014

410 seats, 46.0%
  
261 seats, 28.8%

Start date
  
May 2015

Spanish regional elections, 2015 httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Turnout
  
12,970,917 (65.5%) 1.9 pp

The 2015 regional elections were held on 24 May 2015 in Spain, to elect the regional parliaments of 13 of its 17 autonomous communities: Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile-La Mancha, Castile and León, Extremadura, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre, La Rioja and the Valencian Community. Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country did not hold elections that day because they had separate electoral cycles. Municipal elections were held throughout Spain the same day.

The novelty of these elections was the irruption of two new parties: Podemos (Spanish for "We can"), a party founded in 2014 before the 2014 European Parliament election, and Citizens (C's), a Catalan unionist party created in 2006 to stand in the Parliament of Catalonia elections. Podemos scored a strong third place, close to the two main parties in several regions and entering in all regional parliaments (a first for any party aside from PP and PSOE), while C's placed fourth in most regions, not achieving parliamentary representation only in Canarias, Castile-La Mancha and Navarre.

The People's Party (PP), which in 2011 had obtained some of its best historical results and went on to govern 10 out of the 13 autonomous communities at stake, suffered one of the harshest loss of votes for any party in regional elections. The party lost all of its absolute majorities, compared to the 8 it had achieved in 2011, suffering from the electorate's punishment to Mariano Rajoy's management of the economic crisis in the Spanish government, the party's loss of credibility after many broken 2011 election promises and a series of corruption scandals that had been affecting the party's national and regional leaderships since the unveiling of the Bárcenas affair in January 2013.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) still suffered from the party crisis resulting from the 2008-2011 Zapatero government and lost votes since 2011, which was already considered the worst historical result for the party. Namely, the rise of new and alternative parties prevented the PSOE of capitalizing the PP losses, though it still remained the first or second political force in most regions.

Election date

The determination of the election date varies depending on the autonomous community, as they have different regulations. Initially, regional presidents didn't have the power to dissolve the regional parliaments and call elections of their own, but this notion has evolved over time throughout different reforms of the autonomies' electoral laws and/or Statutes of Autonomy.

  • The presidents of the Valencian Community (from 2006), Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Castile and León (2007) and Navarre (2010) may dissolve the regional legislatures and hold elections at any time different than the date set by law (usually the fourth Sunday of May).
  • The presidents of Madrid (from 1990), Castile-La Mancha (1997), Cantabria, Murcia (1998), Asturias, Extremadura and La Rioja (1999) may dissolve the regional legislatures and hold elections at a time different than the date set by law, but these do not change the period to the next ordinary election, with newly elected MPs merely serving out what remains of the previous projected four-year parliamentary term.
  • By the time of the 2015 regional elections, the President of the Canary Islands is the only chief of a regional government that hasn't been granted the power to dissolve the regional legislature, and elections in Canarias are only held at the fixed date set by law.
  • The fourth Sunday of May 2015 was 24 May, and elections were set to be held that day.

    References

    Spanish regional elections, 2015 Wikipedia