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All 60 seats in the Parliament of the Canary Islands 31 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Opinion polls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Registered | 925,572 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 577,670 (62.4%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Constituency results map for the Parliament of the Canary Islands | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1983 Canarian regional election was held on Sunday, 8 May 1983, to elect the 1st Parliament of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands. All 60 seats in the Parliament were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in twelve other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) emerged as the largest party in the archipelago with 27 seats—4 short of an overall majority—following the disintegration and dissolution of the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), the former ruling party of Spain in the 1977–1982 period which had achieved virtually unopposed victories in the islands in the 1977 and 1979 general elections.[1] The People's Coalition, an electoral alliance comprising the People's Alliance (AP), the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Liberal Union (UL) became the second largest party and the main opposition force in the Parliament with 17 seats, while the also-nationwide Communist Party of Spain (PCE) obtained 1 seat. The centre and centre-right vote became further split between several small parties and splits from the UCD, such as the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) of former Spanish prime minister Adolfo Suárez, which entered Parliament with 6 seats; the Gomera Group of Independents (AGI), with 2 seats; or the Canarian Nationalist Convergence (CNC) and the Independent Herrenian Group (AHI) with 1 seat each.
The election resulted in the most fragmented regional assembly of those elected on 8 May, with nine parties represented in the Parliament.[2][3] The PSOE candidate Jerónimo Saavedra, who had been elected as provisional president in December 1982,[4] was able to get re-elected with the support of AM, AGI and AHI,[5][6] though the party did not commit itself to a global agreement with any other political force.[7]