A regional election was held in Aragon on 8 February 2026 to elect the 12th of the autonomous community. All 67 seats in the were up for election. This marked the first time that an Aragonese president exercised the legal prerogative to call a snap election.
The 2023 election had seen a coalition between the People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party being formed under the presidency of Jorge Azcón. This cabinet lasted until July 2024, when a strategic movement from Vox's national leadership saw the party exiting the government and leaving Azcón in a minority. Discrepancies between PP and Vox during the negotiations of the 2026 budget and Azcón's aim to capitalize on the perceived weakness of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)—with the farewell and later death of former president Javier Lambán and his succession by Spanish government spokesperson and education minister, Pilar Alegría—resulted in a snap election being called for February 2026, in a similar move to regional colleague María Guardiola in Extremadura, and one month in advance of a scheduled regional election in Castile and León.
In an attempt to expand its parliamentary majority, the PP attempted to turn the election into a referendum on the tenure of the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, in a region which was traditionally seen as "Spain's Ohio" for its role as a bellwether. The campaign's start was shaken by the Adamuz train derailments, which prompted all political parties but Vox to postpone their election events as a gesture of mourning. While the PP emerged as the largest political party, its result—underperforming expectations by actually losing support compared to 2023—placed it in a more dependant position to Vox (which doubled its parliamentary representation) than it was before the election, in what was widely seen as a failure in Azcón's early election gamble. The PSOE's decline predicted by opinion polls was confirmed, albeit short of falling below its worst historical result of 2015, whereas the left-wing Chunta Aragonesista capitalized on the losses of United Left and especially Podemos, the latter of which was shut out of parliament. The regionalist Aragonese Party was left without representation for the first time since the first democratic election in the region in 1983.
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 28 May 2023, which meant that the chamber's term would have expired on 28 May 2027. The election decree was required to be published in the BOA no later than 4 May 2027, setting the latest possible date for election day on 27 June 2027.
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..
Speculation emerged in September 2025 that the national leadership of the PP was planning to advance the elections in Aragon and Extremadura (and possibly the Balearic Islands) to make them take place near or concurrently with the Castilian-Leonese election scheduled for early 2026, in an electoral "Super Sunday". While the alleged justification would be the regional governments' failure to approve their 2026 budgets, the true motive was attributed to PP plans—not without risk—to turn the simultaneous election call into a referendum on the national government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Regional president Jorge Azcón ruled out any plans of a joint election call with other regions, with his government allegedly focused on avoiding an election. Tensions between PP and Vox remained high, and a controversy over the dismissal of a Vox parliamentary advisor for online hate speech prompted the breakup of budget negotiations on 21 October. Vox was reportedly willing to take public blame for forcing early elections in Aragon and Extremadura. Azcón's government rejected an immediate election call following the announcement of a snap Extremaduran election for 21 December 2025, but this was attributed to him having his own timetable—unlike in Extremadura, budgetary procedures had not yet begun in Aragon—rather than a lack of willingness for a 2026 election. Throughout November 2025, Azcón hinted at a failure in budget negotiations leading to an early parliamentary dissolution, with a possible election date being considered for February 2026, so as to prevent a simultaneous call with Castile and León in March. February was hinted at as the most likely month for a snap election, with various Spanish outlets confirming on 12 December that the dissolution decree would be signed the next Monday for an election to be held on 8 February.
The of Aragon was officially dissolved on 16 December 2025 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOA, setting election day for 8 February and scheduling for the chamber to reconvene on 3 March..
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 ).
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 December 2025 Groups Parties Legislators Seats Total People's Parliamentary Group in the Cortes of Aragon PP 28 28 Socialist Parliamentary Group PSOE 23 23 Vox Parliamentary Group Vox 7 7 Aragonese Union Parliamentary Group CHA 3 3 Aragon–Teruel Exists Parliamentary Group TE 3 3 Mixed Parliamentary Group Podemos 1 3 IU 1 PAR 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 ). Amendments in 2024 required a balanced composition of men and women in the electoral lists through the use of a zipper system..
Below is a list of the main parties and alliances which will likely contest the election:
Candidacy Parties andalliances Leading candidate Ideology Previous result Vote % Seats PP Jorge Azcón ConservatismChristian democracy 35.5% PSOE Pilar Alegría Social democracy 29.6% Vox Alejandro Nolasco Right-wing populismUltranationalismNational conservatism 11.2% CHA Jorge Pueyo Aragonese nationalismEco-socialism 5.3% Existe Tomás Guitarte LocalismRuralism 5.0% Podemos–AV María Goicoechea Left-wing populismDirect democracyDemocratic socialism 4.0% IU–MS Marta Abengochea SocialismCommunismProgressivism 3.1% PAR Alberto Izquierdo RegionalismCentrism 2.1% SALF Cristina Falcón Right-wing populismAnti-establishment colspan="2"
Campaign Timetable The key dates are listed below (all times are CET):
15 December: The election decree is issued with the countersign of the president, after deliberation in the Government. 16 December: Formal dissolution of parliament and start of prohibition period on the inauguration of public works, services or projects. 19 December: Initial constitution of provincial and zone electoral commissions with judicial members. 22 December: Division of constituencies into polling sections and stations. 26 December: Deadline for parties and federations to report on their electoral alliances. 29 December: Deadline for electoral register consultation for the purpose of possible corrections. 5 January: Deadline for parties, federations, alliances, and groupings of electors to present electoral lists. 7 January: Publication of submitted electoral lists in the Official Gazette of Aragon (BOA). 12 January: Official proclamation of validly submitted electoral lists. 13 January: Publication of proclaimed electoral lists in the BOA. 14 January: Deadline for the selection of polling station members by sortition. 22 January: Deadline for the appointment of non-judicial members to provincial and zone electoral commissions. 23 January: Official start of electoral campaigning.. 29 January: Deadline to apply for postal voting. 3 February: Start of legal ban on electoral opinion polling publication; deadline for non-resident citizens (electors residing abroad (CERA) and citizens temporarily absent from Spain) to vote by mail. 4 February: Deadline for postal and temporarily absent voting. 5 February: Deadline for CERA voting. 6 February: Last day of electoral campaigning. 7 February: Official election silence ("reflection day"). 8 February: 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. 13 February: Start of general vote counting, including CERA votes. 16 February: Deadline for the general vote counting. 25 February: Deadline for the proclamation of elected members. 10 March: Deadline for the reconvening of parliament (date determined by the election decree, which for the 2026 election was set for 3 March).; . 6 April: Deadline for the publication of definitive election results in the BOA.
Party slogans