A regional election was held in Aragon on 28 May 2023 to elect the 11th of the autonomous community. All 67 seats in the were up for election. It was held concurrently with regional elections in eleven other autonomous communities and local elections all across Spain.
The election saw a victory for the People's Party (PP) which benefitted from the collapse of Citizens (CS). Together with the far-right Vox, the PP was able to command a majority of seats in the . The previous government, formed by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Podemos, Aragonese Union (CHA) and the Aragonese Party (PAR) under two-term Aragonese president Javier Lambán, fell five seats short of a majority even with the support of United Left (IU). As a result, PP leader Jorge Azcón was able to become new regional president through a coalition with Vox. This coalition government would last until July 2024, when Vox leader Santiago Abascal forced the break up of all PP–Vox governments at the regional level over a national controversy regarding the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors among the autonomous communities, after which the PP was left in minority.
Overview Under the 2007 Statute of Autonomy, the Cortes of Aragon 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 of Aragon 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 Aragon (BOA), with election day taking place 54 days after the decree's publication.; ( by ). The previous election was held on 26 May 2019, which meant that the chamber's term would have expired on 26 May 2023. The election decree was required to be published in the BOA no later than 2 May 2023, setting the latest possible date for election day on 25 June 2023.
The regional president had the prerogative to dissolve the of Aragon 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 's reconvening, the chamber was to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called..
Following speculation in late 2021 on possible snap elections in Andalusia and Castile and León to be held by the spring of 2022, as well as a similar move being considered in the Valencian Community by regional president Ximo Puig, it transpired that President Javier Lambán was evaluating the opportunity of a simultaneous early election in Aragon in order to benefit from an improving economic outlook following the end of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic-induced economic recession and catch the regional People's Party (PP) leaderless and off-guard. On 11 November, Lambán ruled out such possibility and maintained that the election would be held in May 2023, together with the regularly scheduled local and regional elections.
The of Aragon was officially dissolved on 4 April 2023 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOA, setting election day for 28 May and scheduling for the chamber to reconvene on 23 June..
Electoral system Voting for the was based on universal suffrage, comprising all Spanish nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Aragon and with full political rights, provided that they had not been deprived of the right to vote by a final sentence.; ( by ). Amendments in 2022 abolished the "begged" voting system (), under which non-resident citizens were required to apply for voting. The begged vote system was attributed responsibility for a major decrease in the turnout of Spaniards abroad during the years it was in force.
The of Aragon had a minimum of 65 and a maximum of 80 seats, with electoral provisions fixing its size at 67. All were elected in three multi-member constituencies—corresponding to the provinces of Huesca, Teruel and Zaragoza, each of which was assigned an initial minimum of 14 seats and the remaining 25 distributed in proportion to population (with the seat-to-population ratio in the most populated province not exceeding three times that of the least populated one)—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 constituency was entitled the following seats:.
Seats Constituencies 35 Zaragoza 18 Huesca 14 Teruel
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 April 2023 Groups Parties Legislators Seats Total Socialist Parliamentary Group PSOE 24 24 People's Parliamentary Group in the Cortes of Aragon PP 16 16 Citizens–Party of the Citizenry Parliamentary Group CS 12 12 We Can–Equo Parliamentary Group Podemos 5 5 Aragonese Union Parliamentary Group CHA 3 3 Vox Parliamentary Group Vox 3 3 Aragonese Parliamentary Group PAR 3 3 Mixed Parliamentary Group IU 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, so that candidates of either sex made up at least 40 percent of the total composition..
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 Javier Lambán Social democracy 30.8% PP Jorge Azcón ConservatismChristian democracy 20.9% CS–Tú Aragón Carlos Ortas Liberalism 16.7% Podemos–AV Maru Díaz Left-wing populismDirect democracyDemocratic socialism 8.1% CHA José Luis Soro Aragonese nationalismEco-socialism 6.3% Vox Alejandro Nolasco Right-wing populismUltranationalismNational conservatism 6.1% PAR Alberto Izquierdo RegionalismCentrism 5.1% IU Álvaro Sanz SocialismCommunism 3.3% Existe Tomás Guitarte LocalismRuralism colspan="2" In September 2021, citizen collectives of the so-called "Empty Spain" ( or España Vaciada), a coined term to refer to Spain's rural and largely unpopulated interior provinces, agreed to look forward for formulas to contest the next elections in Spain, inspired by the success of the Teruel Existe candidacy (Spanish for "Teruel Exists") in the November 2019 Spanish general election. By December 2021, the platform was seeking to field candidacies in all three Aragonese provinces ahead of the next regional election.
Campaign Debates + 2023 Aragonese regional election debates Date Organizer(s) Moderator(s) PSOE PP CS–TA Podemos CHA Vox PAR IU Existe Audience 15 May Aragón TV Ana Laiglesia 10.6%
Opinion polls The tables below list opinion polling results in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first and using the dates when the survey fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. Where the fieldwork dates are unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed with its background shaded in the leading party's colour. If a tie ensues, this is applied to the figures with the highest percentages. The "Lead" column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the parties with the highest percentages in a poll.
Graphical summary
Voting intention estimates The table below lists weighted voting intention estimates. Refusals are generally excluded from the party vote percentages, while question wording and the treatment of "don't know" responses and those not intending to vote may vary between polling organisations. When available, seat projections determined by the polling organisations are displayed below (or in place of) the percentages in a smaller font; 34 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Cortes of Aragon.