General elections poll: 52% of Spaniards want to vote now, but 54% reject a motion against Sánchez with Junts

In Spain, the regulation of early elections is fully in force and is supported by the Constitution, the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), and, at the regional level, by the Statutes of Autonomy and specific laws of each community. For general elections, dissolution is a power of the President of the Government, with clear limits and formalization through a Royal Decree. At the regional level, only some communities allow the president to dissolve their parliament early, with their own rules and restrictions. Any change to this system requires a reform of organic laws, with reinforced majorities and full parliamentary processing.

1. Early general elections: current framework and procedure

1.1. Spanish Constitution

The Spanish Constitution regulates early dissolution in article 115, according to the text located in the Constitution:

• Who proposes: the President of the Government, after deliberation of the Council of Ministers and under his exclusive responsibility.
• Who decides and signs: the King decrees the dissolution.
• Content of the decree: the dissolution decree must set the date of the elections.
• Limits: no proposal for dissolution can be presented while a motion of censure is pending, nor can there be a new dissolution before one year has passed since the previous one (except for the special case of article 99.5 CE, related to the failure of investiture).

Article 116 CE adds that the Congress cannot be dissolved while states of alarm, exception, or siege are in force.

1.2. LOREG and formal call

The Organic Law 5/1985, of the General Electoral Regime, completes this framework. According to the consulted fragment of the LOREG:

• The call for elections to the Congress, the Senate, or both Chambers is made by Royal Decree.
• Except in the case of article 99.5 CE, the Decree is issued with the countersignature of the President of the Government, at his proposal and after deliberation of the Council of Ministers.
• In case of early dissolution, the dissolution decree itself must contain the call for elections to the dissolved Chamber or Chambers.
• In the case of article 99.5 CE (lack of investiture), the President of the Congress countersigns the decree.

The Organic Law 2/2016, modifying the LOREG for the “automatic call of elections” by article 99.5 CE, adjusts the regime for the case of blockage in investiture, as set out in the Organic Law 2/2016.

2. Early regional elections

2.1. Communities with dissolution power

In communities that foresee this possibility, the general rule is similar to the state level: the regional president can dissolve the assembly and call early elections, within temporal and political limits set by the Statute and regional laws.

The case of the Community of Madrid, well documented in sources, is illustrative. The Statute of Autonomy of Madrid provides that:

• The President, after deliberation of the Government and under his exclusive responsibility, can agree to dissolve the Assembly before the natural end of the legislature.
• The dissolution is formalized by Decree, which must call elections and contain the requirements demanded by the applicable electoral legislation.
• Limits: it cannot be dissolved in the first session period, nor when less than one year remains of the legislature, nor while a motion of censure is pending, nor when a state electoral process is called; also, no new dissolution is allowed before one year has passed since the previous one.

The Law 5/1990 of the Community of Madrid develops this power and reiterates that the dissolution decree is published in the Official Bulletin of the Community, takes effect at the moment of its publication, and sets the election date, referring to the Madrid Electoral Law.

Other Statutes (such as those consulted for Asturias, La Rioja, Galicia, or Murcia) regulate, with nuances, whether the president can dissolve or not and under what conditions, but no further detail is available in the analyzed sources.

2.2. Communities without dissolution power

In communities whose Statutes do not expressly recognize the power of early dissolution, the legislature is, in practice, of fixed term, and the assembly is only renewed upon completion of the ordinary period or in extraordinary cases provided in the Statute itself (for example, by statutory reform). No further information is available in the consulted sources about additional specific causes.

3. Procedures to reform this regulation

The regulation on calling early elections is mostly contained in organic laws (apart from the Constitution) and in Statutes of Autonomy, which also have organic rank.

• Type of norm: an organic law is required to regulate and modify the general electoral regime (LOREG) and the Statutes.
• Necessary majority: organic laws require an absolute majority of the Congress in a final vote on the entire text.
• Initiative: can come from the Government (bill), parliamentary groups or the Senate (bill proposal), and, for Statutes, also from the regional Assemblies.
• Basic phases: admission for processing, debate on the entirety, committee and commission with amendments, plenary of the Congress, referral to the Senate, possible amendments or veto, and, if applicable, return to the Congress for the final decision, followed by royal sanction and publication in the BOE.

The sources used do not indicate that there is a specific reform of the early dissolution regime underway; the described regulation is currently in force.

The President of the Government has a central role in calling general elections in Spain, because the Constitution grants him the initiative to propose the dissolution of the Cortes Generales to the King and thus automatically open the electoral process. This power is mainly articulated in article 115 of the Spanish Constitution (CE), which regulates the early dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes Generales. That proposal is formalized through a Royal Decree of dissolution and call for elections, agreed upon in the Council of Ministers and countersigned by the President himself. However, this power is subject to very clear temporal and material limits that prevent arbitrary use.

Basic constitutional framework

The President's ability to trigger general elections is framed within the model of rationalized parliamentarism of the 1978 Constitution. There are two main ways to call elections:

• “Ordinary” call: when the mandate of the Chambers expires (four years, art. 68 CE for the Congress and art. 69 CE for the Senate) and it is necessary to renew the Cortes Generales.
• “Early” call: when, before that period, the dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes Generales is agreed upon according to art. 115 CE, at the initiative of the President of the Government.

In practice, when referring to the “President's power to call elections,” it almost always alludes to this second way: early dissolution.

Article 115 CE: initiative of dissolution and proposal to the King

Art. 115 CE establishes that:

• The dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes Generales corresponds to the King.
• But he can only do so at the proposal of the President of the Government, after deliberation of the Council of Ministers.

This means that the King does not decide by himself when early elections are called: the initiative is the President's, who “activates” the dissolution. The proposal is materialized in a Royal Decree of dissolution and call for elections that:

• Is adopted by the Council of Ministers, at the President's initiative.
• Is signed by the King.
• Is countersigned by the President of the Government, who assumes the political and legal responsibility of the act.

That Royal Decree sets the date of the elections within the deadlines established by the Constitution and the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), and determines the dissolution of the Chambers and the start of the electoral period.

Temporal limits on the President's power

Art. 115 CE imposes several limits on the exercise of this power to avoid abusive use:

• Prohibition to dissolve during the first year of the legislature: dissolution of the Chambers cannot be proposed before one year has passed since the previous dissolution.
• Impossibility to dissolve while a motion of censure is pending: if a motion of censure has been presented in the Congress (art. 113 CE), the President cannot avoid it by calling elections; until it is voted and resolved, early dissolution is not allowed.
• Impossibility to dissolve when a state of exception or siege is in force if so determined by applicable norms, to guarantee institutional stability in crisis situations.

Additionally, when certain institutional blockage situations occur in investiture (art. 99 CE), the Constitution itself provides for an “automatic” dissolution of the Chambers if two months pass from the first investiture vote without any candidate being invested. In this case, the King dissolves the Cortes and calls elections, but no longer at the President's discretionary initiative, but by direct constitutional mandate.

Relation with the “ordinary” call of elections

When the four-year mandate of the Congress and Senate expires without early dissolution, the Chambers “expire” and must be renewed. In this context, the call for elections is also articulated through a Royal Decree of dissolution and call, adopted by the Council of Ministers and countersigned by the President. Here the President's power is less discretionary, because renewal is mandatory; the power is limited to adjusting dates within legal margins, not deciding whether to dissolve or not.

Political responsibility of the President

The constitutional design makes the early call of elections essentially a political decision of the President of the Government, who can use it to:

• Strengthen his legitimacy if he considers parliamentary support insufficient or unstable.
• Resolve legislative or governability blockages through consultation with the electorate.

However, since the decision is subject to temporal, material limits and political control by the Congress (through the motion of censure or parliamentary confidence), the system seeks to balance the Executive's power with institutional stability and the centrality of the Cortes Generales.

In the general elections of July 23, 2023 (23J), the Congress of Deputies was highly fragmented: the PP was the most voted force with 137 seats, followed by the PSOE with 121, while Vox obtained 33 and the coalition Sumar 31. The rest of the Chamber was completed with nationalist and regionalist forces: ERC 7, Junts 7, EH Bildu 6, PNV 5, BNG, Coalición Canaria and UPN with 1 seat each. In total, the 350 seats were distributed without any bloc clearly reaching the absolute majority of 176, which explains the complex arithmetic of the current legislature.

Distribution of seats by party (Congress 23J 2023)

The official distribution of the 350 seats after the final count of the July 2023 general elections was as follows:

• PP (People's Party): 137 seats
• PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party): 121 seats
• Vox: 33 seats
• Sumar: 31 seats
• ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia): 7 seats
• Junts per Catalunya: 7 seats
• EH Bildu: 6 seats
• EAJ‑PNV (Basque Nationalist Party): 5 seats
• BNG (Galician Nationalist Bloc): 1 seat
• Coalición Canaria (CCa): 1 seat
• UPN (Navarrese People's Union): 1 seat

Some initial coverage on election night handled provisional figures (for example, 136 seats for PP or 122 for PSOE), but the official data closed at 100% of the count, collected in sources such as RTVE and major outlets, consolidate the 137 seats for PP and 121 for PSOE, as reflected in the Congress results on RTVE, as well as the interactive graphics of Europa Press and the Congress special of El País.

Balance between blocs and role of “hinge” parties

If the main state parties are grouped into blocs, the parliamentary right (PP and Vox) summed 170 seats (137 + 33), to which the UPN deputy can be added, with whom it has traditionally had affinity, reaching 171. On the other hand, the left-wing state bloc (PSOE and Sumar) reached 152 deputies (121 + 31). This sum of 152 for the state left versus a right around 170 explains why governability has depended so markedly on nationalist and independentist parties.

The 23J results thus depict a Congress in which territorial parties concentrate a decisive portion of the Chamber:

• The Catalan parties (ERC and Junts) sum 14 deputies.
• The Basque forces (PNV and EH Bildu) contribute 11 seats.
• The BNG adds 1 key deputy in Galicia.
• Coalición Canaria and UPN represent the Canary Islands and Navarre with 1 seat each.

As analyzed by the newspaper Demócrata when studying Pedro Sánchez's investiture legislature, the partners supporting the Government (ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, PNV, BNG, CC, and others) are essential to surpass the threshold of 171 seats that PP, Vox, and UPN sum, according to the parliamentary profile published in this analysis. That same piece details that PSOE and Sumar start from 147 seats and need almost constant external support to approve ordinary laws and especially organic laws and Budgets.

Political impact of the seat distribution

The fact that the PP won in votes and seats but fell short of the absolute majority, and that the PP‑Vox‑UPN sum also did not reach sufficient support for a viable investiture, opened a scenario in which the only Government alternative was a coalition led by the PSOE with Sumar and the support of much of the nationalist and independentist forces. This arithmetic is the basis of the agreements that have marked the XV Legislature and that the newspaper Demócrata has contextualized in pieces such as the investiture bloc analysis already cited, the movements of parliamentary groups in this report or the explanations about the composition of commissions, such as the Finance Commission, in this piece.

To follow the subsequent evolution of the balance of forces after 23J, Demócrata also offers a vote intention poll aggregator, which takes the July 2023 results as a “snapshot” reference, available in this poll special, and has analyzed how the delay in the constitution of legislative commissions has conditioned the start of the legislature, as explained in this article.

Other Spanish media have offered detailed tables and maps of this seat distribution, which can be consulted in the results specials of ABC, El Mundo, El País (regional analysis) and in the summary prepared by Vinces in these keys. As an additional reference, the subsequent monitoring of force correlation has also been commented on in other spaces, including social networks, as illustrated by this post.