1996 Spanish general election

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 3 March 1996, to elect the members of the 6th . All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 257 seats in the Senate.

Ever since forming a minority government after its victory in the 1993 election, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) had to deal with the impact of the early 1990s recession in the Spanish economy, amid soaring unemployment, an increase in public deficit and GDP contraction. The cabinet of Prime Minister Felipe González was also rocked by the unveiling of a string of corruption scandals, including accusations of funding state terrorism through the GAL, the misuse of public funds to pay for undeclared bonuses to high-ranking officials, tax evasion by former and current cabinet members and illegal espionage by the CESID. A snap election was triggered after Convergence and Union (CiU) withdrew its parliamentary support from to the government in mid 1995 and helped vote down the 1996 General State Budget in October that year.

The election resulted in the first PSOE defeat in a general election since 1979, but predictions of a landslide victory by the opposition José María Aznar's People's Party (PP)—which had achieved resounding wins in the European Parliament, local and regional elections held in 1994 and 1995 and was predicted by opinion polls to secure an outright overall majority or come short of it by few seats—failed to materialize. Instead, the election turned into the closest result between the two major parties in the Spanish democratic period to date; a PSOE comeback, fueled by a strong 77.4% voter turnout (the highest scored ever since) left the PP leading by just 1.2 percentage points and 290,000 votes, falling 20 seats short of an absolute majority. Julio Anguita's United Left (IU)—which had hoped to come close or even surpass the PSOE, in the so-called ''sorpasso''—also failed to meet expectations, despite scoring over 10% in their best overall result in a general election since the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) in 1979.

At 156 seats, this would be the worst performance for a winning party in the democratic period until the 2015 election. The results forced Aznar to tone down his attacks on Catalan and Basque nationalists in order to garner their support for his investiture. After two months of negotiations, agreements were reached with CiU—the Majestic Pact—the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Canarian Coalition (CC), enabling José María Aznar to become prime minister of a centre-right minority cabinet and marking the end of over 13 years of Socialist government.

Background

Following the victory of the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) at the 1993 general election, Felipe González was able to be re-elected as prime minister for a fourth term in office through an confidence and supply alliance with the Catalan nationalist Convergence and Union (CiU) and the support of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV).

The international economic crisis of 1992–1993 continued, with the newly-elected cabinet having to face the impact of unemployment growth, a large public deficit and recession. In an attempt to curb rising joblessness, the government passed a labour reform (legalizing temporary work agencies, introducing "junk contracts", easening employers' ability to modify working condition, reducing overtime and severance pays and making regulations on hiring and collective bargaining more flexible), which was met with a general strike on 27 January 1994. Economic recovery started that year with a slow decrease of unemployment rates and a GDP growth of 2%, but the deficit in the social security system led to the Toledo Pact: a multi-party agreement to transfer all obligations arising from the health care system and social assistance benefits—which would henceforth be financed entirely by general taxes—to the General State Budget, while social security contributions would be maintained to fund pensions.

The terrorist group ETA maintained its activity during this period, including the López de Hoyos bombing in Madrid which killed seven amid the 1993 government negotiations, the killing of PP local councillor in San Sebastián Gregorio Ordóñez, an unsuccessful attempt to kill opposition leader José María Aznar in April 1995 with a car bomb detonated at the passing of his official car, an attempted assassination plot of King Juan Carlos I in the summer of 1995, a car bombing in Puente de Vallecas in December 1995 which killed six, and the kidnapping of prison officer José Antonio Ortega Lara in January 1996, among others.

The 1993–1996 term was marked by the uncovering of numerous corruption scandals affecting the ruling party. In November 1993, Spanish daily '' Diario 16'' unveiled that Civil Guard director general Luis Roldán had amassed a large fortune since assuming office in 1986, which he proved unable to legally justify. In March 1994, '' El Mundo'' revealed that officers from the interior ministry had used money from the "reserved funds"—public funds destined to finance the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and not subject to publicity, justification or external oversight—to make bonus payments to high-ranking officers from the ministry, with Roldán's name appearing among the beneficiaries. In April that year, both media revealed that former president of Navarre Gabriel Urralburu had collected millions in kickbacks through the awarding of public works during his tenure, with Roldán having also benefitted from it. Roldán fled the country to escape legal prosecution, forcing interior minister Antoni Asunción's resignation for failing to monitor him. During his time on the run, Roldán admitted to having been paid bonuses from the reserved funds together with other high-ranking Interior ministry (including former minister José Luis Corcuera) and that he was told that prime minister González was "aware of everything". Roldán was captured on 27 February 1995 in Laos amidst claims that he had reached an agreement with the PSOE government (in what would be coined as the "Laos papers") to charge the former with just two crimes—bribery and embezzlement—in exchange for his voluntary surrender, a claim rejected by the Spanish government. Roldán would later be convicted for these crimes as well as fraud, forgery and tax evasion.

Concurrently, it was revealed in April 1994 that former governor of the Bank of Spain Mariano Rubio had 130 million Ptas of undeclared money in a secret bank account in the Ibercorp investment bank, which had been intervened by the Bank of Spain during Rubio's tenure in 1992. The new revelations in the "Ibercorp case" forced the resignations of Carlos Solchaga (former economy minister and then PSOE spokesperson in Congress, who had backed Rubio in 1992) and Vicente Albero ( agriculture minister, who in May 1994 was discovered to own a secret account with undeclared money related to the scandal). This scandal would serve as a symbol of the connections between the PSOE government and the so-called "beautiful people", businessmen and ''nouveau riche'' who had emerged during the Socialist era.

On 16 December 1994, two policemen convicted in 1991 for participating in the Liberation Antiterrorist Groups (GAL)—death squads involved in a "dirty war" against ETA—confessed to judge Baltasar Garzón that a number of former police and Interior ministry officers were also involved and that the GAL had been financed through the reserved funds. Among those were former interior minister José Barrionuevo, former state security directors Julián Sancristóbal and Rafael Vera, former Biscay PSOE secretary-general Ricardo García Damborenea and a number of police officers. Throughout early 1995, those accused except for Barrionuevo were arrested and court-questioned, leading to the "GAL case" being re-opened by the Spanish National Court on 20 February. Barrionuevo argued that Garzón, who had contested the 1993 general election in the PSOE's electoral lists, was acting out of personal revenge against the party after political differences leading to his resignation as deputy in May 1994. Some defendants accused Felipe González of "knowing and allowing such activities", even pointing out that he could have been the person establishing and financing the GAL (the "Mr. X" person who was attributed leadership over the GAL network). Barrionuevo, Vera and Sancristóbal were convicted for the scandal, but the Spanish Supreme Court concluded in 1996 that there was not proof of González's involvement and that the accusations were based on mere suspicions. Declassified CIA files in 2020 pointed to González having "agreed to the formation of a group of mercenaries, controlled by the Army, to combat the terrorists outside the law".

In June 1995, ''El Mundo'' revealed that the Superior Center of Defense Information (CESID), the main Spanish intelligence agency at the time, had been recording and keeping the taped telephone conversations of dozens of prominent public figures for years, including politicians, businessmen, journalists and King Juan Carlos I himself, apparently without the cabinet's knowledge. This illegal espionage scandal led to the resignations of defence minister Julián García Vargas, under whose authority the CESID was responsible to, and deputy prime minister Narcís Serra, who had been Vargas's predecessor in the office between 1982 and 1991.

The mounting scandals and the impact of the economic crisis took their toll on González's party: it suffered its first-ever nationwide defeat to the opposition People's Party (PP) in the 1994 European Parliament election, and the 1995 local and regional elections brought about the loss of many Socialist governments throughout Spain and a decline in Catalonia for PSOE's parliamentary partner, CiU, which withdrew its confidence and supply support in July 1995. This materialized in the 1996 General State Budget being voted down by the Congress of Deputies on 25 October 1995. As a result, González was forced to call a snap election for early 1996, fifteen months ahead of schedule.

Overview

Electoral system

The Spanish were envisaged as an imperfect bicameral system. The Congress of Deputies had greater legislative power than the Senate, having the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a prime minister and to override Senate vetoes by an absolute majority of votes. Nonetheless, the Senate possessed a few exclusive (yet limited in number) functions—such as its role in constitutional amendment—which were not subject to the Congress' override. Voting for the was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age and in full enjoyment of their political rights.

For the Congress of Deputies, 348 seats were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Spain, with each being allocated an initial minimum of two seats and the remaining 248 being distributed in proportion to their populations. Ceuta and Melilla were allocated the two remaining seats, which were elected using plurality voting. The use of the electoral method resulted in an effective threshold based on the district magnitude and the distribution of votes among candidacies.

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:

For the Senate, 208 seats were elected using an open list partial block voting system, with electors voting for individual candidates instead of parties. In constituencies electing four seats, electors could vote for up to three candidates; in those with two or three seats, for up to two candidates; and for one candidate in single-member districts. Each of the 47 peninsular provinces was allocated four seats, whereas for insular provinces, such as the Balearic and Canary Islands, districts were the islands themselves, with the larger—Majorca, Gran Canaria and Tenerife—being allocated three seats each, and the smaller—Menorca, Ibiza–Formentera, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, El Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma—one each. Ceuta and Melilla elected two seats each. Additionally, autonomous communities could appoint at least one senator each and were entitled to one additional senator per each million inhabitants.

The law did not provide for by-elections to fill vacated seats; instead, any vacancies that occurred after the proclamation of candidates and into the legislature's term were to be covered by the successive candidates in the list and, when needed, by the designated substitutes, of which the list was required to include three.

Election date

The term of each chamber of the —the Congress and the Senate—expired four years from the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier. The election decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the date of expiry of parliament and published on the following day in the Official State Gazette (BOE), with election day taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication. The previous election was held on 6 June 1993, which meant that the legislature's term would expire on 6 June 1997. The election decree was required to be published in the BOE no later than 13 May 1997, with the election taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication, setting the latest possible election date for the on Sunday, 6 July 1997.

The prime minister had the prerogative to propose the monarch to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no state of emergency was in force and that dissolution did not occur before one year had elapsed since the previous one. Additionally, both chambers were to be dissolved and a new election called if an investiture process failed to elect a prime minister within a two-month period from the first ballot. Barred this exception, there was no constitutional requirement for simultaneous elections to the Congress and the Senate. Still, as of , there has been no precedent of separate elections taking place under the 1978 Constitution.

Felipe González's government had been intent on ending the legislative term in 1997, but the opposition PP had insisted on a snap election being held as soon as possible. CiU leader and Catalan president, Jordi Pujol, sought to secure a balance between his party's preference for the next Catalan regional election—initially scheduled for March or April 1996—being held ahead of the general election, and the belief that González could not politically survive the mounting scandals. Following the local and regional elections on 28 May 1995, Pujol opted to hold the Catalan election in the autumn and force a general election for February or March 1996. While González resisted, he did no longer rule out an early electoral call in 1996. On 14 July, González and Pujol agreed for the Catalan election to be held in November and the general election in March, certifying the end of CiU's support to the government.

In September, CiU U-turned and announced that it would reject the 1996 General State Budget to trigger an earlier general election, but González's refusal to alter the agreed electoral calendar forced Pujol to advance the Catalan election to November. The State Budget was voted down by the Congress of Deputies on 25 October, Pujol and his party lost their absolute majority in Catalonia in the 19 November regional election, and González announced the parliament's dissolution—and the end of the 5th Cortes Generales—on 28 December.

The were officially dissolved on 9 January 1996 after the publication of the dissolution decree in the BOE, setting the election date for 3 March and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 27 March.

Parliamentary composition

The tables below show the composition of the parliamentary groups in both chambers at the time of dissolution.

Parties and candidates

Eligibility

Spanish citizens of age and with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not sentenced to imprisonment by a final court's decision nor convicted by a judgement, even if not yet final, which imposed a penalty of forfeiture of eligibility or of specific disqualification or suspension from public office under specific offences: rebellion and terrorism when involving crimes against life, physical integrity or freedom of persons. Other general causes of ineligibility were imposed on members of the Spanish royal family; the president and members of the Constitutional Court, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Supreme Court, the Council of State, the Court of Auditors and the Economic and Social Council; the Ombudsman; the State's Attorney General; high-ranking members—undersecretaries, secretaries-general, directors-general and chiefs of staff—of Spanish government departments, the Prime Minister's Office, government delegations, the Social Security and other government agencies; heads of diplomatic missions in foreign states or international organizations; judges and public prosecutors in active service; Armed Forces and police corps personnel in active service; members of electoral commissions; the chair of RTVE; the director of the Electoral Register Office; the governor and deputy governor of the Bank of Spain; the chairs of the Official Credit Institute and other official credit institutions; and members of the Nuclear Safety Council; as well as a number of territorial-level officers in the aforementioned government bodies and institutions being barred from running, during their tenure of office, in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction. Disqualification provisions for the Cortes Generales extended to any employee of a foreign state and to members of regional governments, as well as the impossibility of running simultaneously as candidate for both the Congress and Senate.

The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, coalitions and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form a coalition ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.

Main candidacies

Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:

There was speculation on whether prime minister Felipe González would run as PSOE's candidate for a fifth term in office, which he initially confirmed "if his party asked him to", being re-elected as PSOE leader in the party's 1994 congress. However, the judicial probe into the GAL case and political weariness made him reconsider, and by the second half of 1995 he was said to have taken the decision not to continue. The election of Foreign Affairs minister Javier Solana—widely seen as González's most likely successor—as NATO secretary-general in December 1995 thwarted González's plans to retire, with him confirming a new run following overwhelming support from his party.

The PSOE, United Left (IU), The Greens (LV), Nationalist and Ecologist Agreement (ENE) and Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) formed the Ibiza and Formentera in the Senate alliance for the Senate election.

Campaign

Party slogans

Opinion polls

Results

Congress of Deputies

Senate

Maps

File:1996 Spanish general election map.svg, Election results by constituency (Congress).
File:1996 Spanish election - Results.svg, Vote winner strength by constituency (Congress).
File:1996 Spanish election - AC results.svg, Vote winner strength by autonomous community (Congress).

Aftermath

Government formation

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:General election in Spain, 1996
1996 elections in Spain
1996
March 1996 in Spain