24 May 2015 Next → 28 July 2011 31 March 2012 55 seats, 49.4% 33 seats, 28.0% | Registered 3,609,265 1.7% 31 March 2012 31 January 2015 Start date May 24, 2015 | |
 | ||
Turnout 2,510,459 (69.6%)
0.6 pp Winner Ximo Puig | ||
The 2015 Valencian parliamentary election was held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 9th democratically elected Corts Valencianes, the regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community of the Land of Valencia. All 99 seats in the Corts were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in 12 other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
Contents
While incumbent President Alberto Fabra's People's Party (PP) remained as the party with the most votes, it lost 24 seats and 22 percentage points compared to its 2011 result, and lost the absolute majority it had held in the Corts since 1999. This result was attributed to the party's management of the economic crisis, as well as the various corruption scandals that affected the PP throughout the entire 2011–2015 period, some of which were unveiled just weeks before the election. The Socialist Party of the Valencian Country (PSPV–PSOE) came second, with 23 seats, 10 fewer than in 2011 and the worst electoral result in its history.
Three other parties achieved representation, of which two were newly formed since 2011: Compromís, with 19 seats, Podemos and C's. EUPV, the main party in a coalition of other forces known as Acord Ciutadà (Valencian for "Citizen Agreement"), did not reach the 5% minimum threshold to achieve representation and therefore lost all of its seats in the Corts. Turnout was, at 69.6%, the lowest since 1999. Subsequently Alberto Fabra announced he would retire from his party's leadership in the region after a PSPV–Compromís coalition with Podemos' support expelled the PP from the regional government after 20 years in power. Ximo Puig from the PSPV–PSOE was elected as new regional President.
Electoral system
The number of seats in the Corts Valencianes was set to a fixed-number of 99. All Corts members were elected in 3 multi-member districts, corresponding to the Valencian Community's three provinces, using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system. Each district was entitled to an initial minimum of 20 seats, with the remaining 39 seats allocated among the three provinces in proportion to their populations, on the required condition that the number of inhabitants per seat in each district did not exceed 3 times those of any other. For the 2015 election, seats were distributed as follows: Alicante (35), Castellon (24) and Valencia (40).
Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the community (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) were entitled to enter the seat distribution. This meant that in the case a list polled above 5% in one or more of the districts but below 5% in the community totals, it would not qualify for any seats.
Background
The 2011 regional election had resulted in the People's Party increasing its absolute majority despite losing votes, thanks to the collapse of the Socialist Party of the Valencian Country vote, which scored its worst historical result up to that point. However, after 16 years of uninterrupted rule, corruption scandals involving the PP began to erupt. Two months after the election, President Francisco Camps resigned because of his alleged implication in the Gürtel case, being replaced as President of the Generalitat Valenciana by Alberto Fabra. The following years saw the unveiling of a series of corruption scandals that rocked the PP, involving party MPs, mayors, local councillors, regional councillors, Courts' speakers and former regional president José Luis Olivas. At one point, up to 20% of the party MPs in the Corts Valencianes (11 out of 55) were charged in different corruption cases; a joke popularized at the time said that they would become the third political force in the Corts Valencianes, only behind PP and PSOE, if they were to form their own parliamentary group. 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.
At the same time, the regional government had to deal with the effects of the ongoing financial crisis. Despite the community's decision to ask for a bailout from the central government headed by Mariano Rajoy in July 2012, its economic situation remained severe. Fabra's government had to close down RTVV, the regional public television broadcasting channel, because of financing issues; a decision which was met with widespread protest.
The 2014 European Parliament election resulted in enormous losses for the People's Party, which, in the largest Valencian cities, lost almost half of its votes in percentage terms compared to the previous elections. Both the economic crisis and corruption helped hasten the party's decline, which had already seen support drop in opinion polls since 2011. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party found itself unable to gain any of the PP's lost support and lost votes too, to the benefit of until then minority parties such as United Left, Union, Progress and Democracy, Citizens or the newly created Podemos party.
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 that date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead but not indicated as a publication date rather than an end of sampling date.
The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's primary 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.
Exit poll
Parliamentary seat projections
Opinion polls showing seat 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. 50 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Corts Valencianes.
Exit poll