2016 Spanish general election
Spanish election
A general election was held in Spain on 26 June 2016 to elect the members of the 12th Cortes Generales under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate. It was a repeat election under the provisions of Article 99.5 of the Constitution, as a result of the failure in government formation negotiations following the previous general election (and the first time a nationwide election was held in Spain under this procedure).
The 2015 election had resulted in the most fragmented parliament since 1977 up to that point, with no party or bloc securing an overall majority. Parliamentary arithmetics prompted the People's Party (PP) of the acting prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, to reject an investiture bid to avoid certain defeat. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) under Pedro Sánchez was invited by King Felipe VI to form a government instead, securing the support of the liberal Citizens (C's) party of Albert Rivera, but opposition by the anti-austerity Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias, thwarted Sánchez's bid. The ensuing political deadlock and failure in government negotiations forced a repeat election being called for 26 June. Podemos joined with United Left into the Unidos Podemos alliance, along with several other minor left-wing parties. Opinion polls going into the election predicted a growing polarization between this alliance and the PP, which would be fighting to maintain first place nationally.
Despite ongoing political scandals (which had seen resignations amid the Púnica affair and the Panama leaks, and the unveiling of Operation Catalonia), the PP benefitted from the political uncertainty and increased its margin of victory, whereas the Unidos Podemos alliance unexpectedly lost support—in what was seen as voter punishment to its hardline stance during government negotiations—thwarting Iglesias's aim to overcome Sánchez's PSOE (the so-called sorpasso), which clung on to second place despite scoring a new historical low.
“2016 Spanish general election” enters the record as spanish election. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Spanish, general and election can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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