The president of the Community of Madrid is the highest-ranking officer of the

Autonomous Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities and 50 provinces of Spain, provinces of Spain. It is located at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula and Meseta Central, Central Plateau (); its capital and largest munici ...

and the head of the

executive branch The executive branch is the part of government which executes or enforces the law. Function The scope of executive power varies greatly depending on the political context in which it emerges, and it can change over time in a given country. In ...

. The office is currently held by

Isabel Díaz Ayuso Isabel Natividad Díaz Ayuso (; born 17 October 1978) is a Spanish politician and journalist serving as the president of the Community of Madrid since 2019. She is also the president of the People's Party of the Community of Madrid since 2022 ...

of the People's Party.

Origins and election

In the process of the democracy restoration in Spain between 1975–1978, the nationalist and regionalist parties pressed to grant

home rule Home rule is the government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governan ...

to parts of Spain. Finally, the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

stated that any province or group of provinces could form an

autonomous community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

and thus be granted partial home rule. The

(Spanish ''Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid'') was created in 1982, and since then regional elections are held every 4 years. The citizens of the

Autonomous Communities of Spain The autonomous communities () are the first-level political divisions of Spain, administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Constitution of Spain, Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonom ...

do not elect a person for

presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...

of their community: but rather they elect the regional legislature, and that legislature elects the regional president. A candidate needs a

majority A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

(that is supposed to be loyal to him/her during the whole term) to be elected, but the top-voted party can be denied the right to form the government. This situation, though infrequent in nationwide elections, often happens in local/regional legislatures throughout Spain: the most usual coalition is between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the United Left (IU). In Madrid, such a coalition was formed in the 2nd term, in which the incumbent Socialist Joaquín Leguina obtained the most vote but not a majority,In fact, even the PSOE-IU coalition was in the minority (47 seats) against the centre-right parties PP and CDS (49), which however could not reach an agreement to rule. Once they did, a situation similar to the 6th term scandal arose, depriving those parties of the majority and allowing President Leguina to continue his minority government. once more in the 3rd term, allowing him to remain in office even after having obtained fewer votes than the People's Party (PP), and once more in the 6th term, by the PSOE candidate

Rafael Simancas Rafael Simancas Simancas (born 1966) is a Spanish politician and member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). Since 2021, he is the Secretary of State for Relations with the Cortes, Secretary of State for Relations with the Cortes and C ...

. However, this last coalition ultimately failed due to the dissidence of two PSOE Assembly Members, which denounced the pact with IU as being too wide and unrepresentative of the people's will due to the planned power balance. Elections were repeated after a few weeks and Partido Popular won, then by absolute majority. Since then, the People's Party victories by absolute majority were repeated in 2007 and 2011's regional elections. After the resignation of President Esperanza Aguirre, nominally due to personal matters in late 2012, her deputy president Ignacio González held the post. The People's Party obtained the most votes in 2015 but lost its absolute majority. Its candidate Cristina Cifuentes was invested president after an agreement with

Citizens Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality; ...

. She was replaced by her deputy Ángel Garrido when she resigned after evidence of both a fake master's degree and petty shoplifting came out.

Origins and election

List of officeholders

Timeline

References