Valencia City Council election, 2015

Election date

Under article 42.3 if the Spanish electoral law, for local elections election day is automatically set for the fourth Sunday of May each four years. As the previous Valencian City Council election had been held on 22 May 2011, the next election was scheduled to be held in the fourth Sunday of May 2015, corresponding to 24 May.

Electoral system

The number of city councillors in the Valencia City Council was determined by the population count. According to the municipal electoral law, the population-city councillor relationship on each municipality was to be established on the following scale:

Additionally, for populations greater than 100,000, 1 city councillor was to be added per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction, according to the most updated census data, and adding 1 more councillor if the resulting seat count gave an even number. As the updated population census for the 2015 election was around 800,000, the Valencia City Council size was set to 33 seats.

All City Council members were elected in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Valencia municipality, 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.

Background

People's Party (PP) candidate Rita Barberá was appointed to a sixth term as Mayor of Valencia after her party won a fifth consecutive absolute majority in the City Council in the 2011 election. Then-ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) had suffered a serious decline in popular support nationwide after Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government had been forced to approve unpopular austerity measures to try to tackle the economic situation. The PP benefitted from the PSOE's collapse, which helped cement its landslide victory by an absolute majority of seats in the 2011 general election held on 20 November and paving the way for the investiture of Mariano Rajoy as new Prime Minister.

However, the PP in the city of Valencia had already shown signs of political wear in the 2011 election—when it suffered a slight decrease in support—as a result of Barberá's continuous tenure as city Mayor since 1991, as well as the unveiling of the Gürtel corruption scandal in 2009. The scandal would result in regional President Francisco Camps' resignation in July 2011, just one month after taking office, with Alberto Fabra succeeding him as regional premier. The following years saw the unveiling of a series of corruption scandals that affected the PPCV, involving party MPs, mayors, local councillors, two Courts' speakers and that also reached former regional President José Luis Olivas. The regional party leadership also had to cope with accusations of illegal financing as well as possible embezzlement in the additional costs incurred in the Formula 1 project and Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 visit to Valencia, accusations that also reached Barberá's local government.

At the same time, both the regional and local governments had to deal with the effects of an ongoing financial crisis. The regional executive was forced to ask for a bailout from the central government headed by Rajoy in July 2012, with its economic situation remaining severe because of high unemployment and debt. The decision of Fabra's government to close down RTVV, the regional public television broadcasting channel, because of financing issues, was also met with widespread protests.

The 2014 European Parliament election, which resulted in enormous losses for the PP in the entire Valencian Community, paved the way for the rise of new parties Podemos, Compromís and Citizens, with the PSOE local branch, the Socialist Party of the Valencian Country (PSPV), finding itself unable to gain any of the PP's lost support. As a result, the ruling PP faced the 2015 election with a severe decline in popular support, an increase of electoral competitiveness and the shadow of corruption looming over the local PP leadership.

Party slogans

Campaign

In April 2015, Compromís denounced Mayor Rita Barberá's expenses using public funds during 2011 and 2014, believing they could pose embezzlement as they were not related to municipal functions but to party acts. The leaked bills, a total of 466 throughout the legislature amounting to expenditures worth of 278,000 euros, included payments for air travels, train tickets, car trips, hotels and restaurants. Compromís candidate Joan Ribó commented that "in a time when there are 85,000 unemployed in Valencia and it is the city with the highest number of evictions per capita, it is obscene, unsupportive and unethical to find all these luxury expenses".

During the election campaign, the public prosecutor announced that it would open an investigation on Barberá's expenses, which it would link to the already ongoing investigation on her because of luxury gifts worth 7,600 euros she would have allegedly received between 2007 and 2009 from a public body chaired by herself. The unveiling of such practices was dubbed as the "Ritaleaks case"—in referente to Rita Barberá's name—by opposition parties, which believed that such expenses were part of a larger scheme that maintained an illegal funding of the Valencian PP through public funds. The expenses scandal dominated the political landscape during campaign, with Barberá's herself being frequently booed during outdoor political acts in markets. She responded by saying she was being the target of a defamation campaign orchestrated by Compromís, and denied committing any wrongdoing or misuse of public money.

Another related scandal, the "Imelsa case", shook the PP campaign as EUPV leaked recordings allegedly belonging to public entity Imelsa former director, Marcos Benavent. Such recordings involved senior party officials, such as Xàtiva Mayor and President of the Valencia Deputation Alfonso Rus, in an alleged illegal financing network of the Valencian PP. The PP denounced Rus and expelled him from the party just 20 days ahead of the election, but he refused to withdraw as candidate and continued campaigning as an independent; the PP being unable to contest the local election in Xàtiva in a separate list.

Vote estimations

Poll results are listed in the tables 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 in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded. The lead column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the two parties with the highest figures. When a specific poll does not show a data figure for a party, the party's cell corresponding to that poll is shown empty.

City councillor projections

Opinion polls showing city councillor projections are displayed in the table below. The highest seat figures in each polling survey have their background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded. 17 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Valencia City Council.

  Exit poll

Consequences

As election results were known, Mayor Rita Barberá conceded defeat to oppositor Joan Ribó from Compromís, whose surprise results (9 city councillors and 23.3% of the vote) allowed him to be appointed as new Mayor through an alliance with both the PSPV and the Valencia in Common coalition, as all three commanded an absolute majority of seats together. The PP had hoped to rely on support from newcomer centrist Citizens, but its 6 seats, together with PP's 10, meant that they fell 1 seat short of an overall majority. Compromís' historic result came mostly at the cost of a declining PSPV, which fell to fourth place and obtained its worst result in history.

On her concession speech, Barberá stated that "I come with dignity, pride and gratitude to all Valencians that have allowed me to be Mayor for 24 years". On her party's result, which lost half of its 2011 vote and city councillors, she commented that "it is a bad result, I will not hide from it". The shock from the PP collapse was such that, in a spontaneous reaction after learning of the election results, Barberá was recorded by cameras as saying "¡Qué hostia!...¡Qué hostia!" (Spanish for "What a whack!... what a whack!") while embracing a party colleague amid tears.

The PP had still hoped that a last-minute failure from the three left-wing parties in reaching an agreement would allow Barberá to be re-elected to the post, as under the Spanish municipal electoral law, the candidate of the most-voted party was to be automatically elected in the event that no other candidate received an absolute majority of votes in the first round. However, on 13 June, Joan Ribó was appointed as new Mayor of Valencia thanks to the votes of the PSPV and VALC. Barberá, who had renounced her seat in the city council the previous day, did not attend Ribó's appointment. The new PP local leader, Alfonso Novo, congratulated Ribó on his election and said the PP would maintain "institutional loyalty, but also firmness and exemplariness" in the new party's role as "opposition and control."

Just seven months later, on 26 January 2016, a major police operation in Valencia would result in the arrest of several high-ranking members from the Valencian PP regional and local branches, as a consequence of the ongoing investigation on the PP's corruption in the region during its time in government. Several days later, on 1 February, all 10 PP city councillors in the Valencia City Council, including Novo himself, would be charged for a money laundering offense, related to the party's illegal financing in the Valencian Community. Judicial investigation pointed to former Mayor Rita Barberá also being involved in the scandal—that also covered the possible illegal funding of her 2015 election run—with her arrest or imputation only being prevented by the fact she had legal protection as an incumbent senator.