Spanish general election, 1996

Legislative elections for the Spanish Cortes Generales were held on March 3, 1996. The elections were for 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, and the 208 directly elected seats in the upper house, the Senate, determining the Prime Minister of Spain.

Incumbent Prime Minister Felipe González of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party lost the elections to the People's Party and their leader José María Aznar, thus ending almost 13 and a half years of Socialist rule: to date, the largest period of time a Spanish party has been in power. However, that of Aznar was a bitter victory. He won just 156 seats out of the 176 needed for a majority, thus short of 20 seats to form a majority government. Similarly, González's one is known as the dulce derrota (sweet defeat).^[1] Despite suffering a net loss of 18 seats and being ousted from government, the popular vote margin between both main parties was of just 300,000 votes.

Despite pre-electoral opinion polls and predictions of a huge PSOE defeat and a PP lead of around 10 points, the close end result makes this election the closest in the Spanish democratic period to date.

Overview

The Congress of Deputies consists of 350 members, elected in 50 multi-member districts using the D'Hondt method, with Ceuta and Melilla electing one member each using plurality voting.^[2]

Apportionment

Under Article 68 of the Spanish constitution, the boundaries of the electoral districts must be the same as the provinces of Spain and, under Article 141, this can only be altered with the approval of Congress.^[3]

The apportionment of seats to provinces follows the largest remainder method over the resident population ("Padrón") with a minimum of two seats (cf. Art. 162 of the Electoral Law).^[4]

Electoral system

Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The electoral system used is closed list proportional representation with seats allocated using the D'Hondt method. Only lists which poll 3% of the total vote (which includes votes "en blanco", i.e., for none of the above) can be considered. Under articles 12 and 68 of the constitution, the minimum voting age is 18.^[3]

Eligibility

Article 67.3 of the Spanish Constitution prohibits dual membership of both chambers of the Cortes or of the Cortes and regional assemblies, meaning that candidates must resign from regional assemblies if elected. Article 70 also makes active judges, magistrates, public defenders, serving military personnel, active police officers and members of constitutional and electoral tribunals ineligible.^[3] Article 55, Section 2 of the 1985 electoral law also disqualifies director generals or equivalent leaders of state monopolies and public bodies such as the Spanish state broadcaster RTVE.^[5]

Opinion polls

Opinion polling for major parties is as such:

Results

Congress

Party vote share by electoral district

External links

• Official results

References