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POLITICS

GUIDE: Elections in Spain in 2023

2023 is set to be a pivotal year in Spanish politics, with municipal and regional elections, plus a general election sometime at the end of the year. Here's all you need to know.

Published: 5 January 2023 17:28 CET
Updated: 9 May 2023 15:52 CEST
GUIDE: Elections in Spain in 2023
For foreigners in Spain, the municipal elections are the ones that you can vote (including some non-EU citizens) and even run in. Photo: LLUIS GENE/AFP

2023 in Spain is setting up to be a bumper year of politics with a series of pivotal elections.

Not only will there be municipal and regional elections, but a general election must be called by the end of the year too.

The Local breaks down when they are, who can vote in them, and why they matter.

Municipal (May 28th)

Spain’s municipal elections, like the equivalent of local elections in the UK, will be held on May 28th, 2023, and will see local councillors and mayors elected in thousands of towns and cities across the country.

READ ALSO: Which Spanish elections can foreigners vote in?

For foreigners in Spain, the municipal elections are the ones that you can vote (including some non-EU citizens) and even run in.

Many don’t realise, but that means that British citizens residing in Spain are still entitled to vote and stand for municipal elections in Spain under similar conditions as they had been able to when still EU citizens, thanks to a bilateral voting agreement with Spain. 

Following Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, however, British citizens now do not have the right to vote in elections to the European Parliament, and still can’t vote in national elections.

When The Local Spain initially reported on the agreement, there were 37 locally elected British town and city councillors in Spain, mostly in the Valencia region and Andalusia, the two Spanish regions with the highest number of British residents.

For Brits wanting to vote (or even run) in your municipal elections this year, be warned that the deadline to register is January 15th. There are a few criteria to qualify, however. You must:

  • Have a legal residence permit in Spain. 
  • Have legally resided in Spain continuously for at least three years prior to your registration. 
  • Be domiciled in the municipality where you want to vote and appear in the municipal register. 

READ ALSO: BREXIT: Britons told to register to vote in local elections despite deal with Spain

Spain’s municipal elections are the best and only chance non-EU foreigners have got to have a say in their local community, and this year the campaign period will be from midnight on Friday, May 12th to midnight on Saturday, May 27th – leaving the rest of Saturday for a day of reflection when campaigning is banned, something customary in Spain.

Registered voters can still vote by post for up to 3 days before the elections are held.

Along with British citizens, citizens from Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Korea, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago can also vote in municipal elections. 

Regional (May 28th)

The important thing to know is that there won’t be regional elections in every region of Spain in 2023. And the only foreigners who can vote in regional elections in Spain are those with Spanish nationality registered in the electoral census.

Also, the decentralised nature of Spanish politics and society means regional governments have a big say in how things are run.

Galicia and the Basque Country held their elections in August 2020, and Catalonia did so a year later, on February 14th 2021.

As The Local reported on, both Castilla y León and Andalusia had controversial and consequential regional elections in 2022, so won’t be having one this year.

That leaves Aragón, Asturias, Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencia, Extremadura, Madrid, Murcia, Navarra and La Rioja, who will all hold regional elections in 2023. The autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla will also have elections.

All regional elections will be on the same date as the municipal elections – May 28th.

READ MORE: What will happen in the Valencia’s regional elections?

As these regional elections come in late May, they will mark the halfway point of the political calendar and serve as a litmus test for the political sentiment in the country more broadly. If one party performs poorly, or particularly well, in the regionals, it could affect momentum heading into the general election at the end of the year.

Similarly, the results of the regional elections may give us some insight into the possible coalition configurations (such as in Castilla y León in 2022) that could potentially play out on the national stage a few years later.

General

Spain’s saves the best (or biggest) until last this year.

Spain is set to have a general election sometime at the end of 2023, the latest (and most likely) date it’ll be called being December 10th.

Unless early elections are called, which Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is unlikely to do while he trails in the polls, the electoral campaign would begin on midnight on Friday, November 24th and last until 00:00 on Saturday, December 9th, with the Saturday being the rest day before voting day on the Sunday.

Though foreigners have no vote in general elections in Spain, the election of a national government always affects life for everyone in the country. For many foreigners in Spain, there’s one main, looming fear: the far-right.

If the PP, Spain’s centre-right party, is forced to form a coalition with far-right Vox, as many predict and fear, there would be ramifications on Spain’s migrant (both legal and illegal) community.

READ ALSO: Who will win Spain’s 2023 election – Sánchez or Feijóo? 

According to Vox’s own policy agenda on its official website, the number one priority in its immigration agenda is the deportation of all illegal immigrants. 

Vox also proposes the deportation of legal migrants who have committed crimes in Spain and regularly cites statistics about the proportion of crimes committed by immigrants.

Similarly, a PP-Vox coalition (or even a PP majority, to a less extent) could impact on Gibraltar. 

If a Brexit deal regarding Gibraltar isn’t made before the next general election and Vox play a minority role in a national government, which is an unlikely but plausible outcome, it is possible that negotiations will be have to be completely restarted and any progress made torn up. 

READ ALSO: BREXIT: UK says ‘significant progress’ in Gibraltar talks with Spain 

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POLITICS

Who will win the European elections in Spain?

Spaniards will soon vote in European elections. Here's what the polls say and which party is likely to come out on top.

Published: 31 May 2024 15:51 CEST
Who will win the European elections in Spain?

From June 6th to 9th, millions of people across Europe will go to the polls to elect members of the world’s only multinational parliament. In Spain polling day is, as always, on Sunday, so Spaniards will head to the polls on June 9th.

This comes at a politically delicate time not only around the world (economic uncertainty, conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, major elections in India, the U.S and U.K this year, among other issues) but also in Spain.

After the Spanish government finally passed its controversial amnesty law for Catalan separatists on May 30th, many political pundits in the country are viewing the upcoming European polls as a referendum on the government and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in particular. If the Spanish right win a comfortable victory, as most polls predict, they may call for a general election.

READ ALSO: 10 things you should know about the European Parliamentary elections

If you’ve followed Spanish politics in the last year or so, you’ll know that it’s been something of a telenovela (soap opera), even by Spanish standards. Whether it be surprise snap general elections, Catalan separatists propping up the government, Spain’s Transport Minister saying the Argentinian President was on drugs, or Sánchez’s jaw-dropping five day sabbatical to decide whether or not he wanted to continue, Spanish politics is many things but certainly never boring.

We won’t go into too much detail now, but you can find all The Local’s political coverage here to get up to speed.

The important thing to understand is the political unpredictability that makes up the background to these European elections. And like with local and regional elections in Spain, these European results will be picked apart by politicians and pundits alike in order to score points, find deeper meaning and underlying trends, and make predictions about what they mean for the future.

READ ALSO: Spanish parliament approves controversial Catalan amnesty bill

Following recent regional elections in Galicia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, and on the back of regional and general elections last year, at times it can feel like Spanish politics is a never ending series of elections.

As such, Spanish pollsters are always busy. In recent weeks, they’ve turned their attention to the European elections.

Let’s take a look at some of the polls and what they’re predicting.

CIS

The pre-election poll conducted by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) gives Sánchez’s Socialists (PSOE) a considerable lead over the right-wing Partido Popular (PP). It is worth noting here that the CIS is state-run, and therefore sometimes accused of being overly sympathetic to the government of the day, in this case PSOE.

CIS estimates that the PSOE will obtain between 32.8 percent and 35.2 percent of the vote, winning between 21 and 24 seats, followed by the PP with between 27.9 percent and 30.2 percent, which would give them between 18 and 20 MEPs.

In third place would be far-right Vox with 5 or 6 projected seats on between 8.6 percent and 10.1 percent of the vote.

On the far-left, Spain’s parties have been divided of late. In short, there’s been a split between Sumar, the current junior coalition member in government, and Podemos, the former junior coalition member in government. An interesting wrinkle to the European campaign is the reemergence of Irene Montero, Spain’s controversial former Equalities Minister, onto the political scene, who will be heading the Podemos list.

CIS projects Sumar will win 4 MEPs with between 5.9 percent and 7.2 percent of the vote.

Podemos is, according to CIS, on course for a vote share somewhere in the range of 4.4-5.4 percent, which would garner 2 or 3 seats. In 2019, the two parties ran together as Unidas Podemos and obtained 10.17 percent and 6 MEPs, so the split could propel the far-right into third place in Spain.

NC Report

The NC Report poll commissioned for La Razón published paints a very different picture to the CIS results, and gives the PP a comfortable victory. NC polling has the PP winning 36.1 percent of the vote and 24-25 seats. If the PP do win, it’s likely that it will heap pressure on Sánchez and call for a general election.

PSOE were projected to win 27.9 percent of the vote, almost ten points behind the PP, and 19 seats.

Where the NC poll does mirror the CIS results is that it puts Voxs in third place (9 percent of the vote, 6 seats).

Of the other parties, it has Sumar (6.8 percent, 4 seats), Ahora Repúblicas (5.2 percent, 3 seats), Podemos (3 percent, 2 seats), and Catalan separatists Junts (2.9 percent, 1-2 seats).

Sigma Dos

The Sigma Dos poll published by El Mundo also gives victory to the PP with 35.1 percent of the vote and 24-25 seats.

The PSOE would come second and win 19-20 seats with 30.2 percent of the vote.

Sigma Dos also had Vox in third place (meaning all three major polls had the same result) obtaining 9.7 percent of the vote and 6 or 7 seats. Sumar was projected to win 7 percent of the vote and 4-5 seats, followed by Podemos (2 seats), Junts (1 seat) and new upstart political party ‘Se acabó la fiesta’ (1-2 seats)

For more on the 2024 European elections across Europe visit The Local Europe’s special election web page.

CIS is the only major poll putting the PSOE on course for victory.

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