A regional election was held in Andalusia on 2 December 2018 to elect the 11th Parliament of the autonomous community. All 109 seats in the Parliament were up for election.
As a result of the previous election, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party of Andalusia (PSOE–A) was able to retain power after obtaining confidence and supply support from Citizens (Cs), with such alliance enduring President Susana Díaz's defeat in the 2017 PSOE leadership election. The PSOE–Cs agreement broke up in September 2018 after Cs withdrew their support from Díaz's government, prompting Díaz to announce the Parliament's dissolution on 8 October and call a snap election for 2 December 2018.
Registered turnout was the second lowest in any Andalusian regional election, only behind that of 1990. The PSOE–A remained the most voted party but suffered an unforeseen setback, dropping from 47 to 33 seats. A far-right party, Vox, gained parliamentary representation in a regional parliament in Spain for the first time since the country's transition to democracy, benefiting from a collapse in the People's Party (PP) vote which saw it nearly tied in votes with Cs. For the first time in the electoral history of Andalusia, right-of-centre parties commanded an absolute majority of seats in the Parliament of Andalusia, allowing a non-Socialist government to take power in the region after 36 years of uninterrupted PSOE rule.
Subsequently, PP and Cs formed a coalition government with Vox support, electing Juanma Moreno as its president. This cooperation between the centre-right and the far-right (including a centrist conservative-liberal party which had supported a center-left government in the prior Andalusian parliament) was widely seen as breaking the cordon sanitaire that most mainstream parties in other European countries had maintained up until that time against parties like the Front National (France), AfD (Germany) or the Sweden Democrats, while paving the way for similar agreements between all three PP, Cs and Vox being reached in other autonomous communities and municipalities following the 2019 local and regional elections.
Overview Under the 2007 Statute of Autonomy, the Parliament of Andalusia was the unicameral legislature of the homonymous autonomous community, having legislative power in devolved matters, as well as the ability to grant or withdraw confidence from a regional president.. The electoral and procedural rules were supplemented by national law provisions..
Date The term of the Parliament of Andalusia expired four years after the date of its previous election, unless it was dissolved earlier. The election decree was required to be issued no later than 25 days before the scheduled expiration date of parliament and published on the following day in the Official Gazette of the Regional Government of Andalusia (BOJA), with election day taking place 54 days after the decree's publication (barring any date within from 1 July to 31 August).; ( by ). The previous election was held on 22 March 2015, which meant that the chamber's term would have expired on 22 March 2019. The election decree was required to be published in the BOJA no later than 26 February 2019, setting the latest possible date for election day on 21 April 2019.
The regional president had the prerogative to dissolve the Parliament of Andalusia at any given time and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process and that dissolution did not occur before one year after a previous one.; . In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional president within a two-month period from the first ballot, the Parliament was to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called..
Throughout the first half of 2018, opinion settled among opposition parties that Díaz would call a snap election by October–November 2018, several months ahead of schedule. On 3 July, the ABC newspaper hypothesized on the actual chances of an early election taking place, dubbing it as a real possibility after considering that Díaz would seek to capitalize on the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)'s growing popularity in opinion polls, hoping to benefit from the disarray within the People's Party (PP) ranks—resulting from its national leadership contest—and Citizens (Cs)'s inability to react after the motion of no confidence which ousted Mariano Rajoy's government from power. During the summer of 2018, it transpired that Susana Díaz was considering to call an autumn election for 28 October. In early September it was commented that the date would be delayed until either 18 or 25 November, After Cs officially withdrew its confidence and supply support from the government on 7 September, leaving the PSOE in minority, 2 or 16 December became the more likely dates for the election to be held. On 8 October, Susana Díaz announced the Parliament's dissolution and confirmed 2 December as the regional election date.
The Parliament of Andalusia was officially dissolved on 9 October 2018 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOJA, setting election day for 2 December and scheduling for the chamber to reconvene on 27 December..
Electoral system Voting for the Parliament was based on universal suffrage, comprising all Spanish nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Andalusia and with full political rights, provided that they had not been deprived of the right to vote by a final sentence, nor were legally incapacitated.; ( by ). Additionally, non-resident citizens were required to apply for voting, a system known as "begged" voting ()..
The Parliament of Andalusia had a minimum of 109 seats, with electoral provisions fixing its size at that number. All were elected in eight multi-member constituencies—corresponding to the provinces of Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville, each of which was assigned an initial minimum of eight seats and the remaining 45 distributed in proportion to population (with the number of seats in each province not exceeding two times that of any other)—using the D'Hondt method and closed-list proportional voting, with a three percent-threshold of valid votes (including blank ballots) in each constituency.; . The use of this electoral method resulted in a higher effective threshold depending on district magnitude and vote distribution.
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Parliament constituency was entitled the following seats:.
Seats Constituencies 18 Seville 17 Málaga 15 Cádiz 13 Granada 12 Almería, Córdoba 11 Huelva, Jaén
The law did not provide for by-elections to fill vacant seats; instead, any vacancies arising after the proclamation of candidates and during the legislative term were filled by the next candidates on the party lists or, when required, by designated substitutes. ( by ).
Outgoing parliament The table below shows the composition of the parliamentary groups in the chamber at the time of dissolution.
+ Parliamentary composition in October 2018 Groups Parties Legislators Seats Total Socialist Parliamentary Group PSOE–A 47 47 Andalusian People's Parliamentary Group PP 33 33 We Can Andalusia Parliamentary Group Podemos 14 15 Equo 1 Citizens Parliamentary Group Cs 8 8 United Left/The Greens Parliamentary Group IULV–CA 5 5 Non-Inscrits INDEP 1 1
Parties and candidates The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, alliances and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form an alliance were required to inform the relevant electoral commission within 10 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. ( by ). Additionally, a balanced composition of men and women was required in the electoral lists through the use of a zipper system..
Below is a list of the main parties and alliances which contested the election:
Candidacy Parties andalliances Leading candidate Ideology Previous result Vote % Seats PSOE–A Susana Díaz Social democracy 35.4% PP Juanma Moreno ConservatismChristian democracy 26.7% AdelanteAndalucía Teresa Rodríguez Andalusian nationalismLeft-wing populismDirect democracy 21.7% Cs Juan Marín Liberalism 9.3% Vox Francisco Serrano Right-wing populismUltranationalismNational conservatism 0.5% Equo–Iniciativa Carmen Molina Green politics colspan="2"
Campaign Timetable The key dates are listed below (all times are CET) instead):
8 October: The election decree is issued with the countersign of the president, after deliberation in the Council of Government. 9 October: Formal dissolution of parliament and start of prohibition period on the inauguration of public works, services or projects. 12 October: Initial constitution of provincial and zone electoral commissions with judicial members. 15 October: Division of constituencies into polling sections and stations. 19 October: Deadline for parties and federations to report on their electoral alliances. 22 October: Deadline for electoral register consultation for the purpose of possible corrections. 29 October: Deadline for parties, federations, alliances, and groupings of electors to present electoral lists. 31 October: Publication of submitted electoral lists in the Official Gazette of the Regional Government of Andalusia (BOJA). 3 November: Deadline for non-resident citizens (electors residing abroad (CERA) and citizens temporarily absent from Spain) to apply for voting. 5 November: Official proclamation of validly submitted electoral lists. 6 November: Publication of proclaimed electoral lists in the BOJA. 7 November: Deadline for the selection of polling station members by sortition. 15 November: Deadline for the appointment of non-judicial members to provincial and zone electoral commissions. 16 November: Official start of electoral campaigning.. 22 November: Deadline to apply for postal voting. 27 November: Start of legal ban on electoral opinion polling publication; deadline for CERA citizens to vote by mail. 28 November: Deadline for postal and temporarily absent voting. 30 November: Last day of electoral campaigning; deadline for CERA voting. 1 December: Official election silence ("reflection day"). 2 December: Election day (polling stations open at 9 am and close at 8 pm or once voters present in a queue at/outside the polling station at 8 pm have cast their vote); provisional vote counting. 5 December: Start of general vote counting, including CERA votes. 8 December: Deadline for the general vote counting. 17 December: Deadline for the proclamation of elected members. 27 December: Deadline for the reconvening of parliament (date determined by the election decree, which for the 2018 election was set for 27 December).; ; . 26 January: Deadline for the publication of definitive election results in the BOJA.
Party slogans Original slogan English translation PSOE–A « Con Susana »« Más Andalucía » "With Susana""More Andalusia" PP « Juanma Moreno, Garantía de Cambio » "Juanma Moreno, Guarantee of Change" Adelante « ¡Adelante!, Salimos a Ganar Andalucía » "Forward! We come out to Win Andalusia" Cs « Ahora Sí, Ciudadanos » "Now Yes, Citizens" Equo–Iniciativa « Andalucía más que verde » "Green-enough Andalusia" Vox « Andalucía por España » "Andalusia for Spain"
Debates + 2018 Andalusian regional election debates Date Organizer(s) Moderator(s) PSOE–A PP Adelante Cs Audience 19 November RTVA Mabel Mata 13.0% 26 November RTVE Pilar García Muñiz 12.3%
Opinion polls