Turnout: 69.67%
About this election
The Spanish general election of 20 December 2015 shattered the two-party system that had governed Spain since the Socialists' first majority in 1982. For the first time in the democratic era, the combined vote of the People's Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) fell below 51%, as two new national forces broke through: the anti-austerity left Podemos and the liberal Citizens (Ciudadanos). The conservative PP, led by the incumbent prime minister Mariano Rajoy, finished first but lost its absolute majority and more than a third of its seats, and the resulting parliament was so fragmented that no government could be formed — forcing a repeat election six months later.
The 350 members of the Congress of Deputies are elected by closed-list proportional representation using the D'Hondt method, with the province as the constituency. Each of the 50 provinces is guaranteed two seats before the remainder are allocated by population (Ceuta and Melilla elect one each), and a 3% threshold applies within every province. Because around half the provinces are small and return only three to six deputies, the system strongly favours the largest parties and parties whose support is geographically concentrated, while a party with evenly spread support — as Citizens and later Vox would discover — wins far fewer seats than its national vote share implies.
The election was dominated by the aftermath of the eurozone crisis, years of austerity and unemployment that had peaked above 26%, and a wave of corruption scandals that engulfed the political establishment. Podemos, founded in 2014 out of the 2011 indignados (15-M) protest movement and led by the ponytailed university lecturer Pablo Iglesias, channelled anger at the political class; Citizens, led by Albert Rivera, offered a centrist, anti-corruption and anti-independence alternative aimed at disillusioned PP and PSOE voters. The Socialists, under their new leader Pedro Sánchez, struggled to define themselves against the insurgent left.
The PP won 28.71% and 123 seats — a heavy loss from the 186 it had won in 2011 — while the PSOE recorded its worst result to that point, 22.00% and 90 seats. Podemos and its regional alliances took a remarkable 20.68% and 69 seats, and Citizens 13.94% and 40. Smaller forces shared the rest: the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) 9 seats, the post-Convergence Democracy and Freedom (DiL) 8, the Basque Nationalists (PNV) 6, the United Left 2, EH Bildu 2 and the Canarian Coalition 1. Turnout was 69.67%.
The arithmetic was intractable. The PP lacked partners, while a left-of-centre bloc of PSOE, Podemos and Citizens was riven by Podemos's demand for a Catalan independence referendum and Citizens' opposition to any deal involving the nationalists. Pedro Sánchez stood for investiture in March 2016 with Citizens' support but was defeated twice on the floor of the Congress, and with no majority in sight King Felipe VI dissolved parliament, triggering fresh elections for June 2016. Rajoy stayed on as caretaker prime minister throughout.
The map showed a country split four ways. The PP dominated the rural interior — both Castiles, Galicia, Murcia and much of Andalusia's countryside — while the PSOE held on in western Andalusia and Extremadura. Podemos's confluences topped the poll in Catalonia (as En Comú Podem) and the Basque Country and ran strongly in the cities, and Citizens drew evenly across the more affluent and urban areas without leading anywhere. The nationalist parties carried their home regions, ERC and DiL splitting Catalonia and the PNV leading in the Basque Country.
Official results from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior (infoelectoral.interior.gob.es), as compiled in the results-by-autonomous-community tables. Vote shares are of valid votes; the regional map is coloured by the leading party in each autonomous community.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.