April 2019 Spanish general election

April 2019 Spanish general election
← 2016 28 April 2019 2019 (Nov) →
All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 208 (of 266) seats in the Senate
176 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
Opinion polls
Registered36,898,883 Green arrow up1.0%
Turnout26,478,140 (71.8%)
Green arrow up5.3 pp
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Pedro Sánchez Pablo Casado Albert Rivera
Party PSOE PP Cs
Leader since 18 June 2017 21 July 2018 9 July 2006
Leader's seat Madrid Madrid Madrid
Last election 85 seats, 22.6% 135 seats, 32.6%[a] 32 seats, 13.0%[b]
Seats won 123 66 57
Seat change Green arrow up38 Red arrow down69 Green arrow up25
Popular vote 7,513,142 4,373,653 4,155,665
Percentage 28.7% 16.7% 15.9%
Swing Green arrow up6.1 pp Red arrow down15.9 pp Green arrow up2.9 pp
  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader Pablo Iglesias Santiago Abascal Oriol Junqueras[d]
Party Unidas Podemos[c] Vox ERC–Sobiranistes
Leader since 15 November 2014 20 September 2014 7 March 2019
Leader's seat Madrid Madrid Barcelona
Last election 71 seats, 21.2% 0 seats, 0.2% 9 seats, 2.6%
Seats won 42 24 15
Seat change Red arrow down29 Green arrow up24 Green arrow up6
Popular vote 3,751,145 2,688,092 1,024,628
Percentage 14.3% 10.3% 3.9%
Swing Red arrow down6.9 pp Green arrow up10.1 pp Green arrow up1.3 pp
Map of Spain showcasing seat distribution by Congress of Deputies constituency
Map of Spain showcasing winning party's strength by constituency
Map of Spain showcasing winning party's strength by autonomous community
Prime Minister before election

Pedro Sánchez
PSOE

Prime Minister after election

No government formed
and fresh election called.
Pedro Sánchez remains
acting Prime Minister

The April 2019 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 28 April 2019, to elect the 13th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate.

Following the 2016 election, the People's Party (PP) formed a minority government with confidence and supply support from Ciudadanos (Cs) and Canarian Coalition (CC), which was enabled by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) abstaining from Mariano Rajoy's investiture after a party crisis resulted in the ousting of Pedro Sánchez as leader. The PP's term of office was undermined by a constitutional crisis over the Catalan issue,[1] the result of a regional election held thereafter,[2] coupled with corruption scandals and protests with thousands of retirees demanding pension increases.[3] In May 2018, the National Court found in the Gürtel case that since 1989 the PP had profited from the kickbacks-for-contracts scheme and confirmed the existence of an illegal accounting and financing structure kept separate from the party's official accounts. Sánchez, who was re-elected as PSOE leader in a leadership contest in 2017, brought down Rajoy's government in June 2018 through a motion of no confidence.[4][5][6][7] Rajoy resigned as PP leader and was subsequently succeeded by Pablo Casado.[8][9][10]

Presiding over a minority government of 84 deputies, Pedro Sánchez struggled to maintain a working majority in the Congress with the support of the parties that had backed the no-confidence motion. The 2018 Andalusian regional election which saw a sudden and strong rise of the far-right Vox party resulted in the PSOE losing the regional government for the first time in history to a PP–Cs–Vox alliance. After the 2019 General State Budget was voted down by the Congress of Deputies on 13 February 2019 as a result of Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT) siding against the government, Sánchez called a snap election to be held on 28 April, one month ahead of the Super Sunday of local, regional, and European Parliament elections scheduled for 26 May.[11][12] The Valencian regional election was scheduled for 28 April in order for it to take place on the same date as the general election.[13]

On a turnout of 71.8%, the ruling PSOE of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won a victory—the first for the party in a nationwide election in eleven years—with 28.7% of the vote and 123 seats, an improvement of 38 seats over its previous mark which mostly came at the expense of left-wing Unidas Podemos. In the Senate, the PSOE became the largest party in the chamber for the first time since 1995, winning its first absolute majority of seats in that chamber since the 1989 election.[14] The PP under Casado received its worst result in history after being reduced to 66 seats and 16.7% of the vote in what was dubbed the worst electoral setback for a major Spanish party since the collapse of the UCD in 1982.[15] Cs saw an increase of support which brought them within 0.8% of the vote and within 9 seats of the PP, passing them in several major regions. The far-right Vox party entered Congress for the first time, but it failed to fulfill expectations by scoring 10.3% of the vote and 24 seats, which was less than was indicated in opinion polls during the run-up to the election. The three-way split in the overall right-of-centre vote not only ended any chance of an Andalusian-inspired right-wing alliance, but it also ensured that Sánchez's PSOE would be the only party that could realistically form a government.[16][17]


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  11. ^ "Los independentistas tumban los Presupuestos y abocan a Sánchez a elecciones". El Periódico de Catalunya (in Spanish). 13 February 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  12. ^ "¿Y ahora qué? Campaña electoral en Semana Santa y constitución de las Cortes antes de los comicios de mayo" (in Spanish). RTVE. 15 February 2019. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  13. ^ "¿Por qué se han adelantado las elecciones en la Comunidad Valenciana?". ABC (in Spanish). 18 April 2019. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  14. ^ "Sánchez gana, se hunde Casado y Rivera se postula como líder de la oposición". El Confidencial (in Spanish). 28 April 2019. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  15. ^ "El PP sufre una derrota histórica, pierde 3,7 millones de votos y Cs se queda cerca del sorpaso". eldiario.es (in Spanish). 28 April 2019. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  16. ^ "El PSOE gana las elecciones pero necesitará pactar y el PP sufre una debacle histórica". El País (in Spanish). 28 April 2019. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  17. ^ "Spain's socialist PSOE party mulls next move after victory without majority". The Guardian. 29 April 2019. Retrieved 4 May 2019.