Turnout: 66.48%
About this election
The Spanish general election of 26 June 2016 was a repeat vote, held because the hung parliament elected in December 2015 had failed to produce a government. Held the morning after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, it returned a result strikingly similar to the first — Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) first but short of a majority — except that the PP recovered ground while the radical left fell short of the breakthrough it had expected. This time, after a four-month deadlock, the impasse was broken, and Rajoy was returned to office.
As in every Spanish general election, the 350 deputies were elected by D'Hondt proportional representation in the 50 provinces plus Ceuta and Melilla, with a 3% provincial threshold and a built-in advantage for the largest parties and for parties with concentrated regional support. The pre-election PASO-style primaries do not exist in Spain, but the same provincial structure that had translated the PP's 28.7% in 2015 into 123 seats again magnified its lead in 2016.
Podemos merged with the United Left to form the Unidos Podemos alliance, and polls suggested the combined list might overtake the PSOE for second place — the long-anticipated sorpasso. Citizens campaigned again as the clean, centrist alternative, while the PP rested on Rajoy's claim to be the guarantor of economic recovery and stability. The Brexit referendum result, announced on the eve of polling day, injected a late note of caution that may have helped the incumbent.
The PP rose to 33.01% and 137 seats, a clear gain. The PSOE slipped further to 22.63% and 85 seats but held off the challenge from Unidos Podemos, which won 21.15% and 71 seats — fewer than the two left parties had won separately in 2015, and a bitter disappointment after the sorpasso talk. Citizens fell back to 13.06% and 32 seats. The Catalan ERC (9) and the post-Convergence PDeCAT (8) again split Catalonia, with the PNV on 5, EH Bildu on 2 and the Canarian Coalition on 1. Turnout fell to 66.48%.
The deadlock persisted into the autumn. The decisive shift came inside the PSOE: Pedro Sánchez, who refused to let Rajoy govern, was forced out by a revolt of regional barons in October 2016, and the party's caretaker leadership then abstained in the investiture vote to end the year-long crisis. Rajoy was sworn in for a second term on 29 October 2016, leading a minority PP government. Sánchez, however, won back the PSOE leadership in a grassroots primary in 2017, setting up the confrontation that would topple Rajoy through a no-confidence motion in June 2018.
The geography barely moved from December. The PP swept the interior and the north-west, strengthening its grip on Castile, Galicia and Murcia, and recovered ground in Andalusia, where it ran close to the PSOE. Unidos Podemos again led in Catalonia and the Basque Country and in parts of the Mediterranean, while Citizens once more polled respectably everywhere without carrying a single autonomous community. The nationalist parties held their regional strongholds.
Official results from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior (infoelectoral.interior.gob.es). 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.