Spanish general election, 2004

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Spanish general election, 2004
All 350 seats of the Congress of Deputies and 208 of 259 seats in the Senate
March 14, 2004
First party Second party

Leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero Mariano Rajoy Brey
Party PSOE PP
Last election 125 seats 183 seats
Seats won 164 148
Seat change +39 -35
Popular vote 11,026,163 9,763,144
Percentage 43.3% 38.3%

Province-level units won by PSOE (red) and PP (blue)

Spain

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Legislative elections were held in Spain on 14 March, 2004. At stake were all 350 seats in the lower house of the Cortes Generales, the Congress of Deputies, and 208 seats in upper house, the Senate. The governing People's Party (PP) was led into the campaign by Mariano Rajoy, successor to outgoing Prime Minister José María Aznar. In a result which defied most predictions, the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, won a plurality of seats in Congress of Deputies, and was able to form a government with the support of minor parties. The socialists received more votes than expected as a result of the government's handling of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. In the early moments following the attacks, the national government maintained the theory of the ETA responsibility; when evidence pointed to the possibility that an Islamic extremist group was behind the massacre, the ETA theory lost weight. If Islamic extremists were responsible, the attack could have been perceived by the electorate to be a consequence of the Spanish government's support of the invasion of Iraq. One of the explanations for the PSOE votes was that a certain number of voters, known as the original non voters (who did not intend to vote in the elections like in prior elections), went to the polls for PSOE. Also many members of IU switched sides and enlarged the PSOE votes and decreased those of IU.

The day after the election, Zapatero announced his intention to form a minority PSOE government, without a coalition, saying in a radio interview: "the implicit mandate of the people is for us to form a minority government negotiating accords on each issue with other parliamentary groups". Two minor left-wing parties, Republican Left of Catalonia and United Left, immediately announced their intention to support Zapatero's government.

Results

In the Congress of Deputies, the PP vote fell by 6.9 percent, and the party lost 39 seats. The PSOE vote rose by 8.5 percent, bringing a gain of 35 seats. On the left, the United Left (a coalition led by the Communist Party of Spain), lost four of its nine seats, but the leftwing Catalan party Republican Left of Catalonia gained seven seats. The conservative Catalan nationalist party, Convergence and Unity, which in the recent past has been allied with the PP, lost five of its 15 seats.

The PSOE's victory was celebrated in the street outside the party's headquarters in Calle Ferraz with shouts of "No war!" and "How happy we are, to live without Aznar", but also "Zapatero, don't fail us!". Consistent with the PSOE's long-standing opposition to the Iraq war, Rodríguez Zapatero had promised during the election campaign to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq by June. Zapatero withdrew the troops shortly after taking office, a decision he justified on his belief that the United Nations was not likely to assume responsibility for Iraq after the U.S.-led occupation formally ended at the end of June, which was his criterion for allowing troops to stay. Subsequent events, indeed, bore out his prediction.

A feature of the result was the increased representation for the Republican Left of Catalonia, a minor left-wing party which has formed a coalition government with the PSOE in Catalonia. The Republican Left's leader, Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, had recently held meetings with the Basque separatist group ETA in France, a revelation which had forced his exit from the recently formed Catalan regional government and had become a campaign issue in the general election.

e • d Summary of the 14 March 2004 Congress of Deputies election results Parties and alliances Votes % Seats
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) 11,026,163 43.3 164
People's Party (Partido Popular) 9,763,144 38.3 148
United Left (Izquierda Unida) 1,359,190 5.3 2
ICV-EUA

• Initiative for Catalonia Greens (Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds)
• United and Alternative Left (Esquerra Unida i Alternativa)

2
Entesa

• Valencian Left (Esquerra Valenciana)
• United Left of the Land of Valencia (Esquerra Unida del País Valencià)

1
Convergence and Unity (Convergència i Unió)

• Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya)
• Democratic Union of Catalonia (Unió Democràtica de Catalunya)

835,471 3.3 10
Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) 652,196 2.5 8
Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco/Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea) 420,980 1.6 7
Canarian Coalition (Coalición Canaria) 235,221 0.9 3
Galician Nationalist Bloc (Bloque Nacionalista Galego)

• Union of the Galician People (Unión do Povo Galego)
• Nationalist Left (Esquerda Nacionalista)
• Galician Unity (Unidade Galega)
• Socialist Collective (Colectivo Socialista)
• Inzar
• Galician Nationalist Party-Galeguista Party (Partido Nacionalista Galego-Partido Galeguista)

208,688 0.8 2
Andalucista Party (Partido Andalucista) 181,868 0.7 -
Aragonese Council (Chunta Aragonesista) 94,252 0.4 1
Basque Solidarity (Eusko Alkartasuna) 80,905 0.3 1
Navarra Yes (Nafarroa Bai)

• Basque Solidarity (Eusko Alkartasuna)
• Aralar
• Batzarre
• Basque Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista Vasco/Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea)

61,045 0.2 1
Total (turnout  %)   350
Source: El País Online

More detailed table of share of votes: