General elections survey: Vox gains 5 seats, the PSOE recovers 4 and PP and Vox reach 207, according to SocioMétrica

In the Spanish legal system, the absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies is not a quality “of the party” in the abstract, but a numerical relationship between seats and members of the Chamber. Legally, a party or coalition achieves an absolute majority when it controls at least 176 deputies out of the 350 that make up the Congress, regardless of the percentage of votes obtained in the elections.

1. Basic legal framework: number of deputies and concept of absolute majority

The Spanish Constitution establishes that the Congress will be composed of between 300 and 400 deputies, elected by universal suffrage (art. 68.1). This range is specified in the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG), which practically sets the Congress at 350 seats.

The concept of absolute majority derives from the voting rules of the Congress: it is the half plus one of the total number of members of the Chamber, not of those present in a specific vote. With 350 seats, half is 175; therefore, the absolute majority requires at least 176 deputies.

This means that:

• The absolute majority is calculated on the total legal number of seats (350), even if there are vacancies.
• It does not depend on the number of votes cast in a session, but on the legal number of members of the Congress.

2. How that absolute majority can be achieved

Legally, electoral lists presented by parties, federations, coalitions, or groups of voters arrive at the Congress, which become seats after the count. The absolute majority can be achieved in several ways:

• A single party obtains 176 or more seats with its own lists. In that case, it is colloquially referred to as the “absolute majority of party X.”
• An electoral coalition (joint lists of several parties, registered as such before the elections) achieves 176 or more seats in total. The coalition acts as a single electoral entity in the distribution of seats, although its members may later organize into different parliamentary groups.
• Several different parties, without forming an electoral coalition, do not sum 176 seats in the same candidacy but can coordinate politically after the elections. Legally, the absolute majority in a vote is achieved if, in that specific vote, at least 176 deputies vote in the same way, even if they belong to different parties.

Therefore, from a strictly legal point of view, the absolute majority does not require that the 176 seats belong to a single party or a formal coalition: what matters is that 176 or more deputies coincide in the vote.

3. Prior legal requirements: parties and coalitions

To compete in the elections that will give rise to that majority, the LOREG establishes formal requirements:

• Parties and federations must be registered in the Register of Political Parties.
• Electoral coalitions (several parties running together in a constituency with common lists) must notify their formation to the electoral administration within the deadline set after the election call, indicating the parties that make it up and the name they will use on the ballots.
• Candidacies must respect the rules of parity and composition, adapt to provincial constituencies, and surpass the electoral thresholds (e.g., the minimum vote threshold in a province to enter the seat distribution).

None of these rules sets a “special requirement” to achieve the absolute majority: they apply equally to all candidacies. The absolute majority results from the number of seats obtained, not from differentiated legal treatment.

4. Effects of the absolute majority

Achieving the absolute majority in the Congress has relevant consequences because the Constitution requires that threshold at several key moments:

• Investiture of the President of the Government: in the first vote, the candidate needs an absolute majority of the Chamber; if not obtained, a second vote is held where a simple majority suffices.
• Motion of censure and vote of confidence: the motion of censure must be approved by an absolute majority; a solid absolute majority facilitates or hinders these political control mechanisms.
• Approval of certain decisions of special relevance (for example, some parliamentary rules or agreements that the Regulations subject to that reinforced threshold).

In summary, the legal requirement is clear: with the current composition of the Congress, the absolute majority is reached with 176 or more deputies, and it can come from a single party, an electoral coalition, or the stable and coordinated sum of several different parties in parliamentary votes.

The President of the Government is the highest authority of the executive power in Spain and occupies a central position in the parliamentary system designed by the 1978 Constitution. His powers and functions are mainly set out in articles 97 to 100 of the Constitution, as well as in other scattered provisions and development laws, such as the Government Law.

The first major function is the direction of the Government's action. Article 97 establishes that the Government directs domestic and foreign policy, the civil and military administration, and the defense of the State. Within that framework, the president is the one who sets the major political orientations, coordinates the ministers, and resolves conflicts between departments, ensuring the unity of the Executive's criteria. In practice, this means that the president sets the political agenda, legislative priorities, and the main lines of public policies.

Linked to the above, the president holds the highest political responsibility of the Government before the Cortes Generales. Although the entire Government is collegiate and jointly responsible, it is the president who responds politically in the first instance before the Congress of Deputies. The motion of censure (art. 113 CE) is addressed to him, which must propose an alternative candidate, and he can also raise a vote of confidence (art. 112 CE) to strengthen his parliamentary support. These tools underline his role as the vertex between the Executive and the parliamentary majority that supports it.

Another essential power is the proposal for the appointment and dismissal of ministers. According to article 100 of the Constitution, the other members of the Government are appointed and removed by the King at the proposal of the President of the Government. This grants the president the capacity to design the structure of his cabinet (create, suppress, or reorganize ministries, within the law) and select the people who will hold the portfolios. Likewise, he can reshuffle the Government by replacing ministers when he considers it politically appropriate.

The President of the Government also plays a relevant role in the relationship with the Head of State. He is the main interlocutor of the King in Government matters, and many formal decisions of the Crown require the countersignature of the president or the competent ministers (art. 64 CE). Additionally, the President of the Government can propose to the King the dissolution of the Cortes Generales or one of the Chambers and the calling of general elections, in accordance with article 115 of the Constitution, except within certain temporal limits (for example, he cannot do so while a motion of censure is in process).

Regarding normative activity, the Government as a whole holds the legislative initiative (art. 87.1 CE) and regulatory power (art. 97 CE). The president, as head of the Executive, directs and coordinates this function: he promotes the preparation of bill projects, sets legislative priorities, and decides, with his cabinet, when to present certain initiatives. Likewise, the Government can approve royal decree-laws in cases of extraordinary and urgent need (art. 86 CE), and it is the president who leads that political decision and assumes responsibility before the Congress.

Another key dimension is the internal and external representation of the Government. Although the representation of the State as a whole corresponds to the King (art. 56 CE), the President of the Government politically represents the Executive: he intervenes in parliamentary debates, regularly appears before the Congress to explain the Government's action, and participates in international summits, European councils, and meetings with other heads of government. Internally, he leads the relationship with the autonomous communities, participates in sectoral conferences, and generally coordinates the Government's position on territorial matters.

He also has responsibilities in security and defense. The Government directs defense policy and the military administration, and the President of the Government heads that political direction. He presides over bodies such as the National Security Council, promotes decisions on deployments of the Armed Forces abroad (within constitutional and legal limits), and coordinates the State's response to serious crises and emergencies.

Finally, the President of the Government has an institutional function of cohesion and coordination of the Council of Ministers itself. He presides over its meetings, sets the agenda, promotes the adoption of agreements, and ensures the overall coherence of governmental action. In this way, the Constitution places the president at the center of the parliamentary system: he is the meeting point between the majority of the Congress, the Crown, the rest of the Government, and the entire State Administration.

After the last general elections held in Spain on July 23, 2023, the Congress of Deputies (XV Legislature) was composed of 350 seats distributed among eleven parties with representation. Based on the data systematically used in the newspaper Demócrata to compare polls with the “23J result,” the initial distribution of seats by party was as follows:

• People's Party (PP): 137 seats. It is the most voted force and the group with the greatest representation. Numerous polling pieces compare the current scenario with those “137 deputies” obtained by Feijóo in the 2023 general elections, consolidating that figure as the official 23J reference.
• Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE): 121 seats. Various polls cited by Demócrata repeatedly indicate that the PSOE “obtained in 2023 31.7% and 121 deputies” and measure its wear starting from that mark.
• Vox: 33 seats. Post-election and polling analyses emphasize that Vox achieved in the 2023 general elections “12.4% and 33 deputies,” a number from which the subsequent growth of Abascal's formation is calculated.
• Sumar: 31 seats. The space to the left of the PSOE then ran under the Sumar brand — which included Podemos and other forces. Comparison articles note that the unified candidacy reached “31 deputies” in 23J, a figure later contrasted with scenarios where Sumar and Podemos appear separated.
• Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC): 7 seats. In the investiture arithmetic analysis, it is noted that ERC contributes “7 votes” to the block supporting the Government, referring to 7 deputies elected in July 2023.
• Junts per Catalunya (Junts): 7 seats. Similarly, it is mentioned that Junts also has “7” deputies, which become key for majorities both in investiture and ordinary processing.
• Euskal Herria Bildu (EH Bildu): 6 seats. The Basque nationalist formation appears in parliamentary analyses with “6” deputies in the Congress, a number stably integrated into the so-called investiture block.
• Basque Nationalist Party (PNV): 5 seats. In the description of the distribution of forces, it is indicated that the Basque Group (PNV) has “5 seats,” decisive in certain close votes.
• Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG): 1 seat. It is systematically attributed “1” deputy, located in the Mixed Group and treated as one of the Government's potential supports in key votes.
• Canarian Coalition (CC): 1 seat. Demócrata texts mention CC with “1” deputy in the Congress, also in the Mixed Group, whose position can tip some votes.
• Navarrese People's Union (UPN): 1 seat. UPN appears in analyses as an additional seat aligned with the right-wing block (adding with PP and Vox), so it is usually said that there are “171 deputies” among PP, Vox, and UPN based on the 23J snapshot.

This distribution sums the 350 seats of the Chamber and is taken as the “fixed photo” reference in most subsequent analyses of the XV Legislature. From it, both investiture scenarios and polling comparisons are built: for example, how many seats PP, PSOE, Vox, or Sumar would gain or lose relative to those 137, 121, 33, and 31 deputies, respectively.

It is important to distinguish this initial composition after the elections from the current snapshot of the Chamber. As several Demócrata reports note, numerous resignations and replacements of deputies have occurred during the legislature that do not alter the number of seats per party that came out of the polls but do affect the specific names occupying those seats. For example, it is noted that “one in eight deputies has resigned from the parliamentary seat since the beginning of the legislature” and detailed changes are especially numerous in PSOE and PP, as well as replacements in Sumar, Vox, or nationalist groups.

However, for understanding the political composition of the Congress after the last general elections, what matters is the seat distribution immediately after 23J 2023: a Congress numerically dominated by PP and PSOE, with Vox as the third force, Sumar as the fourth state group, and a set of nationalist and regionalist parties (ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, PNV, BNG, CC, and UPN) completing the arithmetic up to 350 deputies.