General elections poll: PP and Vox would have 33 more seats than the absolute majority and Sánchez would drop to 104, according to Hamalgama

The possible call for early general elections does not have, as such, a “parliamentary status” in the Congress or the Senate, because it is not a procedure processed as a law or as a parliamentary initiative. The decision to dissolve the Cortes and bring forward the elections is an act of the executive power with the intervention of the Head of State, regulated by the Constitution and electoral legislation, not by the Rules of the Chambers as if it were a bill. Therefore, as long as there is no formal decree of dissolution and call, no specific file on “early elections” appears in the Cortes.

1. Absence of specific parliamentary status

In the usual language of the Cortes Generales, draft bills and legislative proposals, motions, non-legislative proposals, questions, interpellations, etc., have “parliamentary status.” These are numbered, registered, and go through phases (consideration, committee, plenary, Senate, etc.).

The call for early elections does not follow that circuit:

• There is no bill for “calling elections.”
• No proposal for early dissolution of the Chambers is submitted to a vote in the Congress or the Senate.
• There is no identifiable parliamentary file in the registry of the Congress or the Senate whose object is “to call general elections.”

Therefore, strictly speaking, the “possible call” does not appear at any stage of parliamentary processing. Until the decree of dissolution is signed and published, the only thing that can exist are political debates, non-legislative proposals, or group declarations in favor or against an early election, but this does not change that the formal decision does not depend on a vote of the Chambers.

2. Who decides the early dissolution

The early dissolution of the Cortes and the consequent call for general elections is articulated as a decision of the Prime Minister, who submits it to the King. It is an act typically linked to the relationship between the Executive and the Head of State, not to the ordinary parliamentary procedure.

In a simplified way, the scheme is as follows:

• The Prime Minister politically decides that he wants an early election.
• He formulates the proposal for dissolution of the Congress and Senate and the call for elections to the King.
• The King signs the corresponding decree, which is published in the official bulletin, making the dissolution effective and setting the election date and electoral calendar.

The Cortes do not vote on that decree nor do they have to approve it as if it were a legislative initiative. What does exist is a constitutional and legal framework that conditions when and how this power can be used (for example, avoiding temporal abuses or conflicts with other essential State processes), but that framework is not processed as another matter on the agenda of the Chambers each time they are dissolved.

3. Indirect role of Parliament

Although the Congress and the Senate do not approve the early dissolution, their political dynamics can force or encourage it to happen:

• If the majority supporting the Government breaks or becomes very unstable, the Prime Minister may consider the early election as a political way out.
• Certain highly relevant parliamentary episodes (systematic loss of key votes, agenda blockage, etc.) can serve as justification for the early election.
• The opposition forces usually use parliamentary debate to pressure for or against the early call.

Even so, all this remains on the political level, not strictly procedural: groups can request elections, present non-legislative proposals urging the Government to call them, or make it a focus of their discourse, but none of these initiatives is legally binding to trigger the early election.

4. Difference with other parliamentary procedures

It is advisable to distinguish early dissolution from other mechanisms that are processed and voted on in the Chambers, such as the motion of no confidence, the vote of confidence, or the investiture of a president. Those procedures do have formal parliamentary phases, regulated debates, and defined majorities for their approval or rejection.

In contrast, the call for early elections, although it may be politically related to the outcome of those processes, is a subsequent and separate act, which does not appear as its own “parliamentary status” in the records of the Congress and the Senate.

The Prime Minister is the head of the executive power and politically directs the Council of Ministers, with specific powers defined by the Constitution and the Government Law. The call for general elections is always articulated through a royal decree by the King, but the initiative generally lies with the Prime Minister himself, except in the exceptional case of investiture blockage. This power of dissolution and call is subject to temporal and material limits (for example, it cannot be exercised if a motion of no confidence is underway or during states of emergency or siege). The procedural development of the electoral process and campaign deadlines is set by the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), with specific regulation for automatic elections due to investiture failure.

Powers and functions of the Prime Minister

The basic framework is in the Spanish Constitution, especially in the articles about the Government. Article 97 establishes that the Government directs domestic and foreign policy, the civil and military administration, and the defense of the State, and exercises executive function and regulatory power. Article 98.2 specifies that the Prime Minister directs the action of the Government and coordinates the functions of the ministers, without prejudice to their direct competence and responsibility.

The Law 50/1997, of the Government systematically develops these functions. It specifies that, in any case, the Prime Minister is responsible for:

• Representing the Government.
• Establishing the political program of the Government and setting the guidelines of domestic and foreign policy, ensuring their compliance.
• Proposing to the King, after deliberation of the Council of Ministers, the dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes Generales.
• Submitting the vote of confidence to the Congress, after deliberation of the Council of Ministers.
• Proposing to the King the call for a consultative referendum, after authorization from the Congress of Deputies.
• Directing defense policy and exercising functions over the Armed Forces as provided by defense legislation.
• Calling, presiding over, and setting the agenda of the Council of Ministers.
• Endorsing, if applicable, the acts of the King, in accordance with the Constitution.

The political responsibility of the Government before the Congress is articulated through the vote of confidence and the motion of no confidence, according to the Constitution. The Prime Minister can ask the Congress to vote on his program or a general policy declaration; if he loses that vote, the Government must resign and the investiture procedure reopens. Conversely, the Congress can demand responsibility from the Government through a motion of no confidence, which must include an alternative candidate for the Presidency; if approved by an absolute majority, the outgoing Government resigns and the proposed candidate is invested and appointed Prime Minister.

Appointment, dismissal, and relationship with the King

After each renewal of the Congress, the King proposes a candidate for the Presidency, after consulting with the representatives of the political groups and through the President of the Congress, according to the Constitution. That candidate presents his program and requests the confidence of the Chamber; if obtained, the King appoints him Prime Minister. The Government ceases after general elections, in case of loss of parliamentary confidence (vote of confidence or motion of no confidence), or by resignation or death of the Prime Minister, continuing in office until the new Government takes office.

Dissolution of the Cortes and call for general elections

The power to dissolve the Cortes and trigger elections is mainly regulated in the Constitution and specified in electoral legislation. According to the Constitution itself (article appearing in the consulted window), the Prime Minister, after deliberation of the Council of Ministers and under his exclusive responsibility, can propose to the King the dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes Generales. The King decrees the dissolution, and the dissolution decree sets the election date.

There are important limits:

• The proposal for dissolution cannot be presented when a motion of no confidence is underway.
• A new dissolution cannot occur before one year has passed since the previous one, except in the specific case of article 99.5 (investiture blockage).
• While the states of alarm, exception, or siege are declared, the Congress cannot be dissolved (article 116.5 of the Constitution).

Additionally, article 99.5 of the Constitution provides that if two months pass from the first investiture vote without any candidate obtaining the confidence of the Congress, the King automatically dissolves both Chambers and calls elections, with the endorsement of the President of the Congress.

This exceptional case was developed through Organic Law 2/2016, which adds a seventh additional provision to the LOREG. That provision establishes that in these automatic elections the royal decree of call is issued the day after the two-month period expires, is published and comes into force that same day, and sets the election date for the forty-seventh day after the call. For this case, the electoral campaign is shortened to eight days and several procedures are simplified (maintenance of electoral boards, representatives, endorsements, and external vote requests).

In ordinary processes (natural end of the legislature or early dissolution at the initiative of the Prime Minister), the LOREG establishes the general temporal framework of the process and the campaign: the campaign begins on the thirty-eighth day after the call, lasts fifteen days, and ends at midnight on the day immediately before the vote, according to the consulted fragment. On that basis, the complete calendar of the process (from the call to the proclamation of elected representatives) is organized in the LOREG itself and in instructions from the Central Electoral Board, such as Instruction 3/2019, adapting them when several elections coincide.

The official results of the general elections to the Congress on July 23, 2023, show a clear predominance of the two major state parties (PP and PSOE), accompanied by Sumar and Vox as medium forces and by several nationalist and independentist parties with between 1% and 2% of the vote. At the state level, only eight parties surpassed the 1% vote threshold, and all of them obtained representation in the Congress. Additionally, parties with more territorially concentrated support such as BNG or Coalición Canaria won seats despite not reaching 1% at the state level. Below I detail the exact available data by party, according to the official scrutiny of the Ministry of the Interior collected by media such as RTVE.

Statewide results by party (23J 2023, Congress)

Parties with more than 1% of the vote at the state level and representation in the Congress:

• PP (People's Party): 137 seats, 8,091,840 votes, 33.1% of the valid vote at the state level.
• PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party): 121 seats, 7,760,970 votes, 31.7%.
• Vox: 33 seats, 3,033,744 votes, 12.4%.
• Sumar: 31 seats, 3,014,006 votes, 12.3%.
• ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia): 7 seats, 462,883 votes, 1.9%.
• JxCAT–Junts per Catalunya: 7 seats, 392,634 votes, 1.6%.
• EH Bildu: 6 seats, 333,362 votes, 1.4%.
• EAJ‑PNV (Basque Nationalist Party): 5 seats, 275,782 votes, 1.1%.

According to the summary of results used in the analysis by EPData, there are no parties that exceed 1% at the state level without seats. The consulted text also notes that the bipartisanship (PP+PSOE) reached 64.8% of the vote, which explains much of the distribution of seats.

Parties with less than 1% and representation

Although your question focuses on parties with more than 1% of the vote, the mentioned sources highlight two relevant cases that, despite not reaching that state threshold, did win seats due to the territorial concentration of their support:

• BNG (Galician Nationalist Bloc): around 0.6% state level and 1 seat.
• CCa (Canarian Coalition): around 0.5% state level and 1 seat.

The exact detail of their state percentage does not appear broken down more precisely in the available fragments; for detailed data by party, constituency, and type of vote, the agreement of the Central Electoral Board published in the BOE and associated official documentation can be consulted, such as the BOE on 23J results and the document on CERA vote from the Central Electoral Board ([link]).

General context of the election

According to data collected by EPData, turnout was 69.64% of the census. The result left a very fragmented Congress in which no bloc reached an absolute majority without support from several nationalist and independentist forces, something also analyzed in parliamentary context pieces such as the Demócrata report on the investiture bloc (investiture bloc analysis).

For comparative analyses of this result with historical series or with elections at other levels (European, regional, etc.), sources such as ABC, the synthetic file from Wikipedia, works on electoral history such as [link], and the aggregation model of polls from the newspaper Demócrata (Demócrata polls) have also been used.

Other relevant links consulted

Within the framework of this response, contents from Demócrata and statistical and official sources have also been reviewed, among others: current articles and analyses from the newspaper Demócrata such as [link], [link], [link] and others; INE notes such as national accounts and EPA; documentation from the Central Electoral Board and the BOE on other elections (2024 European results, correction of European results); and notes from the Catalan Government on regional elections (12M results, 12M turnout, [link]), as well as analyses from other media such as El País and audiovisual references like [link].