A bitter victory and a sweet defeat: the July 2023 Spanish general election

ABSTRACT

This article examines the outcome of the July 2023 election in Spain. Despite the right- and far-right bloc winning a higher share of the votes, the two main incumbent parties on the left (PSOE and Sumar) defeated the odds and returned to government thanks to a post-election agreement with six other parties, including the Catalan pro-independence political formations. We show how coordination in the left bloc was important in shaping the outcome. An increase in mobilisation and strategic voting across districts contributed to preventing the right-wing bloc from achieving an absolute majority of seats.

KEYWORDS:

• Spain
• elections
• radical right
• Socialists
• conservatives
• vote concentration
• strategic voting
• fragmentation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Spanish head of government is usually referred to in Spain as the Government’s President. This article uses the terminology ‘prime minister’ to refer to Pedro Sánchez.

2. Non-state wide parties (NSWP) are political parties operating in some regions of a state. In the case of Spain, these parties often correspond to political formations that aim to represent nationally-distinct regions.

3. The Índice de Precios de Vivienda en Alquiler (IPVA, Rental Housing Price Index) is a measure that ‘aims to assess the evolution of the price of housing rented as a habitual residence’ (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2021, p. 7).

4. The Ley Orgánica del Régimen Electoral General (LOREG, Organic Law of the General Electoral Regimen), in its 45^th article, states that ‘[t]he candidacies, signed by the representatives of the parties, federations and coalitions and by the promoters of the groups of voters, are presented to the competent Electoral Board between the fifteenth and twentieth day after the call’ (LOREG 2022).

5. State-wide parties (SWP) are political parties operating across the whole territory of a state.

6. Spain’s autonomous communities are the first sub-national level of political and administrative division.

7. Weather conditions, particularly rain, have been shown to influence turnout in Spanish politics (Artés 2014). Since temperatures can reach up to 40 or 50 degrees Celsius in Spain during the summer, many speculated about its influence on turnout and, in turn, the results.

8. Voters can opt for a limited number of individual candidates, always fewer than the number of seats allocated in their district. Although conceived as a territorial chamber by the Spanish Constitution, the Senate has a combination of deputies elected by the people and by the regional parliaments. The powers of the Senate are very limited, and it plays a marginal role in Spanish politics. In the 23 July election, the PP obtained an absolute majority of seats in the Senate (this situation is not new, since it happened also following the 2008 and 2011 elections). Although the party can use its majority to block important laws drafted by the Congress, the latter has almost always the power to overrule the former.

9. Vox shares with the European far-right family many characteristics (nativism, traditional morality, and an anti-immigration stance). Yet, it is also fundamentally different in some respects, particularly in their high levels of Spanish nationalism, their aggressiveness against national minorities (especially against the Basque and the Catalan nationalism) and their full rejection of LGBTQ rights. Compared to the European far-right family, Vox is one of its more extreme members (Rama et al. 2021).

10. To become prime minister, if a candidate does not have the majority in the lower chamber, the Constitution establishes that a second vote will be held in 48 hours in which the same candidate will only need a simple majority to get elected.

11. Scholars often referred to the idea of an ‘imperfect’ two-party party-system (Linz & Montero 2001) to characterise the Spanish party system, in which there were two main parties (i.e. PSOE and PP) and a smaller party (IU) with coalition potential – plus other parties coming from a few regions (especially Catalonia and the Basque Country).

12. District sizes in Spain range from small districts, which elect up to five seats, medium districts elect from six to nine seats, and large ones elect ten or more (Rodon 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Toni Rodon

Toni Rodon is Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He is also a research fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests include electoral participation, political geography, comparative politics and historical political economy www.tonirodon.cat.

Irene Rodríguez

Irene Rodríguez is a Graduate Student at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She specializes in political behaviour, participation and public opinion http://irenerodriguezlopez.github.io/.