Extremaduran regional election, 2007

Extremaduran regional election, 2007

27 May 2007
All 65 seats in the Assembly of Extremadura 33 seats needed for a majority
Registered	893,547 1.4%
Turnout	669,752 (75.0%) 0.6 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Guillermo Fernández Vara Carlos Floriano Víctor Casco Party PSOE–r PP–EU IU–SIEx Leader since 20 September 2006 13 October 2000 30 November 2003 Leader's seat Badajoz Cáceres Cáceres (lost) Last election 36 seats, 51.7% 26 seats, 40.5% 3 seats, 6.3% Seats won 38 27 0 Seat change 2 1 3 Popular vote 352,342 257,392 41,448 Percentage 53.0% 38.7% 4.5% Swing 1.3 pp 1.8 pp 1.8 pp
Constituency results map for the Assembly of Extremadura
President before election Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra PSOE Elected President Guillermo Fernández Vara PSOE

The 2007 Extremaduran regional election was held on Sunday, 27 May 2007, to elect the 7th Assembly of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura. All 65 seats in the Assembly were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in 12 other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) leader Guillermo Fernández Vara, who replaced Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra as his party's candidate after 25 years of rule in the region, went on to win a comfortable absolute majority with 38 out of 65 seats, almost equalling the party's best result in the region in 1991. The opposition People's Party (PP), which for this election ran in coalition with regionalist United Extremadura (EU) party, was unable to make any significant gains, winning 1 seat to 2003 but losing ground when compared with the combined PP-EU vote share of that year's election.

United Left (IU), for the first time in its history, was unable to meet the 5% party threshold either regionally or in any of the provinces and was left out of the Assembly, this being the only time that just two parties had parliamentary representation in the Extremaduran Assembly.

Electoral system

The 65 members of the Assembly of Extremadura were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with a threshold of 5 per 100 of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Parties not reaching the threshold were not taken into consideration for seat distribution. Alternatively, parties failing to reach the threshold in one of the constituencies would also be entitled to enter the seat distribution as long as they ran candidates in both districts and reached 5 per 100 regionally. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Badajoz and Cáceres. Each constituency was entitled to an initial minimum of 20 seats, with the remaining 25 allocated among the constituencies in proportion to their populations.^[1][2] Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage, with all nationals over eighteen, registered in Extremadura and in full enjoyment of all political rights entitled to vote.

The electoral law provided that parties, federations, coalitions and groupings of electors were allowed to present lists of candidates. However, groupings of electors were required to secure at least the signature of 2 per 100 of the electors entered in electoral register of the constituency for which they were seeking election. Electors were barred from signing for more than one list of candidates. Concurrently, parties and federations intending to enter in coalition to take part jointly at an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days from the election call.^[1][3][4]

Elections were fixed for the fourth Sunday of May every four years. The President of Extremadura had the prerogative to dissolve the Assembly and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no nationwide election was due and some time requirements were met—namely, that dissolution did not occur either during the first legislative session or within the legislature's last year ahead of its scheduled expiry, nor before one year had elapsed since a previous dissolution under this procedure—. Additionally, the chamber was to be automatically dissolved and a new election called if an investiture process failed to elect a regional President within a two-month period from the first ballot. Any snap election held as a result of these circumstances would not alter the period to the next ordinary election, with elected deputies merely serving out what remained of their four-year terms.^[2][3][5][6]

Results

Overall

← Summary of the 27 May 2007 Assembly of Extremadura election results →

Parties and coalitions		Popular vote			Seats
		Votes	%	±pp	Won	+/−
	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party–Regionalists (PSOE–regionalistas)	352,342	53.00	+1.34	38	+2
	People's Party–United Extremadura (PP–EU)1	257,392	38.71	–1.83	27	+1
	United Left–Independent Socialists of Extremadura (IU–SIEx)	30,028	4.52	–1.75	0	–3
	Independents for Extremadura (IPEx)	8,389	1.26	New	0	±0

Distribution by constituency

References