2015 Valencian regional election
The 2015 Valencian regional election was held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 9th Corts of the Valencian Community. All 99 seats in the Corts were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in twelve other autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
While incumbent President Alberto Fabra's People's Party remained as the party with the most votes, it lost 24 seats and 22 percentage points compared to its 2011 result, and lost the absolute majority it had held in the Corts since 1999. This result was attributed to the party's management of the economic crisis, as well as the various corruption scandals that affected the PP throughout the entire 2011–2015 period, some of which were unveiled just weeks before the election. The Socialist Party of the Valencian Country came second, with 23 seats, 10 fewer than in 2011 and the worst electoral result in its history.
Three other parties achieved representation, of which two were newly formed since 2011: Compromís, with 19 seats, Podemos and C's. EUPV, the main party in a coalition of other forces known as Acord Ciutadà, did not reach the 5% minimum threshold to achieve representation and therefore lost all of its seats in the Corts. Turnout was, at 69.6%, the lowest since 1999. Subsequently, Alberto Fabra announced he would retire from his party's leadership in the region after a PSPV–Compromís coalition with Podemos' support expelled the PP from the regional government after 20 years in power. Ximo Puig from the PSPV–PSOE was elected as new regional President.
Overview
Electoral system
The Corts Valencianes were the devolved, unicameral legislature of the Valencian autonomous community, having legislative power in regional matters as defined by the Spanish Constitution and the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a President of the Government. Voting for the Corts was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over eighteen, registered in the Valencian Community and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Additionally, Valencians abroad were required to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote.The 99 members of the Corts Valencianes were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with a threshold of 5 percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied regionally. Parties not reaching the threshold were not taken into consideration for seat distribution. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Alicante, Castellón and Valencia. Each constituency was entitled to an initial minimum of 20 seats, with the remaining 39 allocated among the constituencies in proportion to their populations on the condition that the seat to population ratio in any given province did not exceed three times that of any other.
The electoral law provided that parties, federations, coalitions and groupings of electors were allowed to present lists of candidates. However, groupings of electors were required to secure the signature of at least 1 percent of the electors registered in the constituency for which they sought election. Electors were barred from signing for more than one list of candidates. Concurrently, parties and federations intending to enter in coalition to take part jointly at an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days of the election being called.
Election date
The term of the Corts Valencianes expired four years after the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier. The election Decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the date of expiry of parliament and published on the following day in the Official Journal of the Valencian Community, with election day taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication. The previous election was held on 22 May 2011, which meant that the legislature's term would have expired on 22 May 2015. The election Decree was required to be published no later than 28 April 2015, with the election taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication, setting the latest possible election date for the Corts on Sunday, 21 June 2015.The President of the Government had the prerogative to dissolve the Corts Valencianes and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process. In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional President within a two-month period from the first ballot, the Corts were to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called.
Background
The 2011 regional election had resulted in the People's Party increasing its absolute majority despite losing votes, thanks to the collapse of the Socialist Party of the Valencian Country vote, which scored its worst historical result up to that point. However, after 16 years of uninterrupted rule, corruption scandals involving the PP began to erupt. Two months after the election, President Francisco Camps resigned because of his alleged implication in the Gürtel case, being replaced as President of the Generalitat Valenciana by Alberto Fabra. The following years saw the unveiling of a series of corruption scandals that rocked the PP, involving party MPs, mayors, local councillors, regional councillors, Courts' speakers and former regional president José Luis Olivas. At one point, up to 20% of the party MPs in the Corts Valencianes were charged in different corruption cases; a joke popularized at the time said that they would become the third political force in the Corts Valencianes, only behind PP and PSOE, if they were to form their own parliamentary group. The regional party leadership also had to cope with accusations of illegal financing as well as possible embezzlement in the additional costs incurred in the Formula 1 project and Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 visit to Valencia.At the same time, the regional government had to deal with the effects of the ongoing financial crisis. Despite the community's decision to ask for a bailout from the central government headed by Mariano Rajoy in July 2012, its economic situation remained severe. Fabra's government had to close down RTVV, the regional public television broadcasting channel, because of financing issues; a decision which was met with widespread protest.
The 2014 European Parliament election resulted in enormous losses for the People's Party, which, in the largest Valencian cities, lost almost half of its votes in percentage terms compared to the previous elections. Both the economic crisis and corruption helped hasten the party's decline, which had already seen support drop in opinion polls since 2011. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party found itself unable to gain any of the PP's lost support and lost votes too, to the benefit of until then minority parties such as United Left, Union, Progress and Democracy, Citizens or the newly created Podemos party.