1986 Spanish general election

Shortly after assuming office on 2 December 1982, Prime Minister Felipe González had to face a worsening economic situation, with high inflation, soaring unemployment and a public deficit at 6%. Among the new PSOE government's first economic measures were the nationalization of the Rumasa holding due to its financial situation, alleged fraudulent practices and continuous evasion from the inspection activity conducted by the Bank of Spain, the reduction of working time to 40-hour week, the establishment of a minimum legal annual leave of 30 days and a lunch break of 15 minutes. This period saw major reforms being implemented in order to achieve economic recovery as well as equalization of Spain with the remainder of Europe, including an unpopular economic stabilization plan involving a process of industrial restructuring (which led to the closure of many obsolete industries) and a reform of the pension system which lengthened the period used to calculate full pension benefits from 10 to 15 years and adopted a new system for pension revaluation. This economic policy received widespread criticism from trade unions—including the historically PSOE-aligned UGT—leading to strikes and demonstrations opposing the government's economic policy. A new labor reform was approved, which included fiscal incentives to investment, added protection for unemployed and the easing of temporality through the implementation of fixed-term contracts. González's first term also saw the establishment of the Spanish National Health System and universal health care in Spain, and decriminalization of abortion in three cases: therapeutic in cases of serious risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, during the first 12 weeks; criminological in cases of woman rape, during the first 22 weeks; and eugenic in cases of fetus malformations, at any time during pregnancy. Internally, these years were marked by a harsh hostile campaign from terrorist group ETA, with around one hundred dead throughout the 1982–1986 period as a result of its activity, which was countered with a similarly harsh government response. The PSOE government also had to deal with the issue of military insurrectionism, with a profound reorganization of the Spanish Armed Forces by promoting an increase of civil authority over the military, with the final aim of professionalizing the Armed Forces and end the threat of military coup attempts. Felipe González also came briefly involved in the 1984 German Flick affair, when SPD MP Peter Struck said in the German press that another MP from his party, Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, had given one million marks from the corruption plot to González himself. The Spanish prime minister countered this with a remarkable statement at the time: "I have not received a single mark, a single penny, a single peseta, neither from Flick nor from Flock", and was later acquitted from the scandal by the inquiry commission in Congress. 's first government. Internationally, the PSOE government was successful in culminating negotiations for the Spanish entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), effective from 1 January 1986. The issue of NATO membership was more controversial, as the PSOE had campaigned for the holding of a referendum on the issue after Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo's move to enter the alliance in May 1982. However, once in power Felipe González evolved to support NATO. According to Santos Juliá, the main factors that influenced the PSOE government's change of attitude were "pressure from the United States and several European countries; the connection between staying in NATO and Spain–EEC negotiations and the growing favorable stance of the Spanish Defence Ministry to attain closer ties with the Alliance". By 1985, as Spain had signed the Act of Accession to the EEC, preparations for the referendum on NATO membership started, being eventually held on 12 March 1986. NATO permanence option won the vote by a surprising 53.1% to 40.3%, and the PSOE came out reinforced. Within the opposition, the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) was dissolved in February 1983. Under Manuel Fraga's leadership, the People's Alliance (AP) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) joined with other parties to form the People's Coalition, seeking to build on his idea of the "natural majority" of the centre-right in order to win the next general election. At the same time, Catalan politician Miquel Roca tried to enter national politics by founding the Democratic Reformist Party (PRD), supported by the Catalan-based Convergence and Union (CiU), the Liberal Democratic Party (PDL) of Antonio Garrigues Walker and a number of regional parties, in what came to be known as "Operation Roca". All attempts at forming a common alliance between the three main centre to centre-right political forces—including the growing Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) of former prime minister Adolfo Suárez—failed throughout 1985. In the left, the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) experienced an internal crisis which saw the resignation of its leader Santiago Carrillo and his succession by Gerardo Iglesias. Internal disagreements resulted in splits that saw the birth of the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) and the Workers' Party of Spain–Communist Unity (PTE-UC). ==Overview==

Under the 1978 Constitution, the Spanish were conceived as an imperfect bicameral system. The Congress of Deputies held greater legislative power than the Senate, having the ability to grant or withdraw confidence from a prime minister and to override Senate vetoes by an absolute majority. Nonetheless, the Senate retained a limited number of specific functions—such as ratifying international treaties, authorizing cooperation agreements between autonomous communities, enforcing direct rule, regulating interterritorial compensation funds, and taking part in constitutional amendments and in the appointment of members to the Constitutional Court and the General Council of the Judiciary—which were not subject to override by Congress. Date The term of each chamber of the —the Congress and the Senate—expired four years from the date of their previous election, unless they were 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 State Gazette (BOE), with election day taking place between 54 and 60 days after the decree's publication. The previous election was held on 28 October 1982, which meant that the chambers' terms would have expired on 28 October 1986. The election decree was required to be published in the BOE no later than 4 October 1986, setting the latest possible date for election day on 3 December 1986. The prime minister had the prerogative to propose the monarch to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no state of emergency was in force and that dissolution did not occur before one year after a previous one. Additionally, both chambers were to be dissolved and a new election called if an investiture process failed to elect a prime minister within a two-month period from the first ballot. Barring this exception, there was no constitutional requirement for simultaneous elections to the Congress and the Senate. Still, as of , there has been no precedent of separate elections taking place under the 1978 Constitution. While the 1986 general election was initially expected for October, there was widespread opinion that a snap election would be held in June alongside the scheduled 1986 Andalusian regional election, with part of the government remaining ambiguous on the issue. On 21 April, Felipe González announced his intention to trigger an early dissolution of the , explaining that it was his wish to prevent "political uncertainties" resulting from an autumn election that could affect the country's economic prospects during the making of the 1987 General State Budget. The were officially dissolved on 23 April 1986 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 22 June and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 15 July. Electoral system Voting for each chamber of the was based on universal suffrage, comprising all Spanish nationals over 18 years of age with full political rights, provided that they had not been deprived of the right to vote by a final sentence, nor were legally incapacitated. The Congress of Deputies had a minimum of 300 and a maximum of 400 seats, with electoral provisions fixing its size at 350. Of these, 348 were elected in 50 multi-member constituencies corresponding to the provinces of Spain—each of which was assigned an initial minimum of two seats and the remaining 248 distributed in proportion to population—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 remaining two seats were allocated to Ceuta and Melilla as single-member districts elected by plurality voting. 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 Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats: 208 Senate seats were elected using open-list partial block voting: voters in constituencies electing four seats could choose up to three candidates; in those with two or three seats, up to two; and in single-member districts, one. Each of the 47 peninsular provinces was allocated four seats, while in insular provinces—such as the Balearic and Canary Islands—the districts were the islands themselves, with the larger ones (Mallorca, Gran Canaria and Tenerife) being allocated three seats each, and the smaller ones (Menorca, Ibiza–Formentera, Fuerteventura, La Gomera, El Hierro, Lanzarote and La Palma) one each. Ceuta and Melilla elected two seats each. Additionally, autonomous communities could appoint at least one senator each and were entitled to one additional seat per million inhabitants. 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. Outgoing parliament The tables below show the composition of the parliamentary groups in both chambers at the time of dissolution. ==Candidates==

Nomination rules Spanish citizens with the right to vote could run for election, provided that they had not been criminally imprisoned by a final sentence or convicted—whether final or not—of offences that involved loss of eligibility or disqualification from public office (such as rebellion or terrorism, when involving crimes against life, physical integrity or personal freedom). Additional causes of ineligibility applied to the following officials: • Members of the Spanish royal family and their spouses; • Holders of a number of senior public or institutional posts, including the heads and members of higher courts and state institutions; the Ombudsman; the State's Attorney General; high-ranking officials of government departments, the Office of the Prime Minister and other state agencies; government delegates in the autonomous communities and civil governors; the director-general of RTVE; the director of the Electoral Register Office; the governor and deputy governor of the Bank of Spain; the heads of official credit institutions; and members of electoral commissions and of the Nuclear Safety Council; • Heads of diplomatic missions abroad; • Judges and public prosecutors in active service; • Members of the Armed Forces and law enforcement bodies in active service. Other ineligibility provisions also applied to a number of territorial officials in these categories within their areas of jurisdiction, as well as to employees of foreign states and members of regional governments. • A number of senior public or institutional posts, including the presidency of the Competition Defence Court; and leadership positions in RTVE, government offices, public authorities (such as port authorities, hydrographic confederations, or highway concessionary companies), public entities and state-owned or publicly funded companies; • Any other paid public position, except university teaching. Parties and lists 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. Below is a list of the main parties and alliances which contested the election: ==Campaign==

Party slogans Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party under Felipe González campaigned on a continuity platform, emphasizing on the idea of progress and trying to highlight that the party's management of government during the previous four years had been positive for the country. The democratization process after the turbulent years of the early 1980s was deemed as having been fully completed, the military insurrectionism threat had been vanquished, Spain had been integrated within Europe and the economic crisis was easening, with the brunt of the industrial conversion having been dealt with in the first years of Socialist government. It also tried to deliver on the idea that the party's programme was not yet fulfilled, with many proposals still left to be carried out. There were notable divergences from the campaigning style of 1982: González himself, being now the Prime Minister, had a busy public agenda and was only able to participate in large campaign events during weekends, having little time to maintain direct contact with party militants. He also wanted to distance himself from direct confrontation to the other parties' candidates, usually leaving that task to Deputy Prime Minister Alfonso Guerra and other PSOE leaders, in order to emphasize his image as Chief of the Executive. The PSOE's electoral manifesto for the 1986 election also avoided making any concrete pledges such as those done in 1982. Opposition parties had accused the PSOE government of a rudely style of ruling, of arrogance, of little austerity and of informational opacity, a result, according to them, of the large absolute majority of seats it had obtained in the 1982 election. Thus, one of the PSOE's self-imposed objectives during the election campaign was to maintain that absolute majority. In the end, the PSOE would win the election but with a significantly reduced majority of 184 seats, compared to the 202-strong majority achieved in 1982. People's Coalition The People's Alliance, the People's Democratic Party and the Liberal Party contested the election in a common ticket under the People's Coalition label. Some regionalist parties in different autonomous communities, such as the Navarrese People's Union in Navarre, also joined the coalition, who was to be led into the election by AP leader Manuel Fraga. Its campaign centered into criticising the González' government record in office, accusing the PSOE of breaking many of its 1982 election pledges and asking voters to support an alternative to the Socialists, with Fraga opening the possibility to invite other parties, specially the CDS and the PRD, into a coalition government aimed at ousting the PSOE from power. The Coalition released an election programme which was described as a mixture of economic neoliberalism and social conservatism. Among the Coalition's election pledges were the privatization of public companies (the most notable example being TVE 2) and of the healthcare assistance system in order to reduce tax burden and public spending; the implementation of a national plan against drugs; the illegalization of HB and tougher penalties for terrorists (going as far as to promise an end to ETA terrorism within 6 months); a repeal of the newly approved abortion law and a revision of the divorce law. The Coalition was criticised for its perceived right-wing stance, with serious difficulties to define an alternative policy to the PSOE, a weak opposition stance to González' government (virtually trailing the Socialists on every issue) and a lack of initiative. The Coalition's call for abstention in the March referendum (despite the party's official stance favouring Spain permanence within NATO) had been a fatal blow to its expectations in the upcoming general election, being seen, on the one hand, as a gesture of political opportunism in an attempt to weaken Felipe González' position and, on the other hand, as showing a lack of political guidance. Instead, the 'Yes' landslide victory had reinforced the PSOE in the eyes of public opinion, but the Coalition's position on the referendum was met with skepticism and disapproval from other centre-right parties, both nationally and internationally. United Left The roots for the United Left (IU) coalition originated during the protests to demand the exit of Spain from NATO in 1986, with the "Platform of the United Left". While the 1986 referendum had resulted in the country's permanence within NATO, sectors to the left of the PSOE sought to form a unitary candidacy for the 1986 general election aimed at representing the nearly 7 million voters that had shown their position against such a permanence. Aside from the PCE, which was to become IU's main member party, also joining the coalition were the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), the Socialist Action Party (PASOC), the Republican Left (IR), the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain or the Collective for the Unity of Workers-Andalusian Left Bloc (CUT-BAI), among others. Aside from its anti-NATO stance, the IU coalition also opposed the Socialist government's recent industrial conversion, which had been carried out almost unilaterally and with little to no talks with trade unions, thanks to the PSOE absolute majority in Congress. IU campaigned on a left-wing platform, accusing the PSOE of abandoning its socialist roots and of applying liberal policies. On the international stage, IU promised to bring Spain out of NATO, the dismantling of US bases and the withdrawal of US troops from Spanish soil, as well as to counter "the harmful consequences of integration within the EEC, a conception of Europe against the interests of multinationals and imperialism and to support initiatives for the elimination of nuclear weapons and against the militarization of space." On the domestic stage, IU's pledges included nationalizations in the banking and energy sectors. It also provided for large investments in the public sector, an agrarian reform and a federal model of state which provided for "the full development of the rights of nationalities and regions". ==Opinion polls==

Congress of Deputies Senate Maps File:1986 Spanish general election map.svg|Election results by constituency (Congress). File:1986 Spanish election - Results.svg|Vote winner strength by constituency (Congress). File:1986 Spanish election - AC results.svg|Vote winner strength by autonomous community (Congress). ==Aftermath==

Outcome The 1986 election results showed little changes to the balance of power with respect to 1982. Overall, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) remained the dominant party in Spanish politics by securing a second consecutive overall majority in the Congress of Deputies. Prime Minister Felipe González was regarded to have come out reinforced from the election. With his popularity already soaring after winning the NATO referendum on March, politically turned into a plebiscite on his premiership, the election results further strengthened his political position by securing him a new mandate to continue the reforms already in place since in 1982. Nonetheless, the election unveiled the first signs of weariness of the PSOE government, as it suffered major losses in support in the major urban centers, the same that had set out the seed for González's landslide victory in 1982. In the Madrid Community the PSOE suffered the most, scoring a bare 40% from the 52% it had secured four years previously. Despite this, discontent towards the government did not translate into major inroads for other parties. Voters' apathy and the absence of strong alternatives to the Socialists translating into a substantial increase of the abstention rate, which rose to 29.5% from the 20.0% of 1982. The centre-right People's Coalition (AP–PDP–PL) failed to secure substantial gains from the 1982 result of the People's Alliance–People's Democratic Party (AP–PDP) alliance, experiencing small gains in Castile and León, Extremadura and Melilla but falling elsewhere. Adolfo Suárez's Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) virtually took over the place of the defunct Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) with nearly 2 million votes and 19 seats. On the other hand, results for the Democratic Reformist Party (PRD) of Miquel Roca were an unmitigated disaster and a blow to Roca's national aspirations, disbanding shortly thereafter. Its Catalan counterpart Convergence and Union (CiU), however, made significant gains in the Socialist stronghold of Catalonia, dramatically closing the gap with the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) to just 9 points from a 23-point lead in 1982. The newly formed United Left) coalition was able to slightly improve over the Communist Party of Spain (PCE)'s result in 1982, despite the split of former party leader Santiago Carrillo's Communists' Unity Board (MUC), which was unable to gain parliamentary representation. In the election aftermath, the People's Coalition found itself into a state of deep crisis after results showed it was unable to garner the support of the centre voters. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) immediately broke away from the Coalition after the election; its 21 MPs forming their own parliamentary caucus in the Congress of Deputies, thus reducing the Coalition's parliamentary strength to 84. Manuel Fraga would resign as People's Alliance (AP) leader after the party's disastrous results in the November 1986 Basque regional election, deepening a party crisis that would last until its refoundation into the People's Party (PP) in 1989. Government formation 1987 motion of no confidence ==Notes==