SPAIN

ELECTIONS HELD IN 2004

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Chamber:

Congreso de los Diputados

Dates of election / renewal (from/to):

14 March 2004

Purpose of elections:

Elections were held for all the seats of the Congress of Deputies on the normal expiry of the members' term of office.

Background and outcome of elections:

On 19 January 2004, both chambers of Parliament were dissolved paving the way for general elections on 14 March 2004.

The electoral campaign, defined as lacklustre by political analysts, focused on the battle against ETA (the Basque separatist group). Four days before polling day, campaigning was halted as a result of the near simultaneous bombings of commuter trains and train stations on 11 March which killed nearly 200 people and wounded more than 1,400.

Prior to the attacks polls unanimously gave Prime Minister's conservative party, the Popular Party (PP), a clear lead. The PP held 183 seats of the 350 in the outgoing Congress of Deputies.

Ahead of the election, analysts felt that if the voters accepted the government's assertion putting blame on ETA for the terrorist attack in Madrid (an accusation ETA denied), Mr. Aznar's party would be rewarded at the polls. Aznar, himself a survivor of a 1995 ETA car-bomb assassination attempt, made the fight against terrorism and ETA one of the main policies of his eight years in office. But if people saw al Qaeda's hand in the carnage, voters might view the attacks as retribution for Mr. Aznar's Iraq policy and punish his party when they voted.

Spaniards had reacted furiously in 2003 when Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar aligned himself with U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to support the invasion of Iraq. Aznar did not send combat troops, but did dispatch 1,300 peacekeepers.

The government had to back away from its initial certainty that ETA was behind the attacks as news emerged that a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape had been found in a town where three of the bombed trains originated. Later, a statement was sent to an Arabic paper in London claiming the attacks were the work of al Qaeda.

A larger than expected 77 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote. Many voters admitted that they had not planned to vote until the bombings, which proved to be the decisive factor in the general election. The government was voted out of office as voters gave the Socialist Party led by Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero 42.6 per cent of the vote. The Socialist Party thus gained enough votes to give it a simple majority in the Congress of Deputies, taking seats from the incumbent Popular Party (PP) in almost all of the country's 19 electoral regions. The PP obtained 38 per cent of the votes, while the United Left (IU) 5 per cent, the Catalan Regional Party (CiU) 3 per cent and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) 2.5 per cent.

In the Senate, the results were slightly different, as the Popular Party retained the largest number of seats (102) while the Socialist Party obtained 81.

On 2 April 2004, the Parliament held its first sitting and elected Mr. Manuel Marín González as Speaker of the Congress of Deputies and Mr. Francisco Javier Rojo García as President of the Senate.

STATISTICS


Round no 1 (14 March 2004): Election results
Number of registered electors		33'475'376
Voters		25'846'620 (77.21%)
Blank or invalid ballot papers		668'379
Valid votes		25'178'241



Round no 1: Distribution of votes

Political Group	Candidates	Votes	%
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)		10'909'687	43.33
People's Party (PP)		9'630'512	38.25
Convergence and Union (CiU)		829'046	3.29
Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)		649'999	2.58
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)		417'154	1.66
United Left (IU)		1'269'532	5.04
Others
Canarian Coalition		221'034	0.88
Galician Nationalist Party (BNG)		205'613	0.82


Round no 1: Distribution of seats

Political Group				Total
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)				164
People's Party (PP)				148
Convergence and Union (CiU)				10
Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)				8
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)				7
United Left (IU)				5
Others				3
Canarian Coalition				3
Galician Nationalist Party (BNG)				2

Comments:

Source: Ministry of the Interior

Distribution of seats according to sex:

Men:

224

Women:

126

Percent of women:

36.00

Distribution of seats according to age:

Distribution of seats according to profession:

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