PP and Vox kick off the campaign with up to 202 seats and an absolute majority: daily tracking by Sigma Dos for the 29N elections

The constitution of the new Cortes is carried out through separate constitutive sessions of the Congress and the Senate, not through the joint opening ceremony of the legislature. For the Congress, the decisive rule is that it must meet on the day and time established in the royal decree calling the election. It is important to distinguish that date from the subsequent deadlines to form parliamentary groups and hold the solemn opening.

1. Meeting date and initial actions

Article 1 of the Congress Regulations states: "Once general elections to the Congress have been held, it shall meet, in accordance with the provisions of article 68.6 of the Constitution, in a constitutive session on the day and time indicated in the Royal Decree of convocation."

Therefore, the specific date following the elections of November 29, 2026 must be obtained from that decree: it is not pending an agreement among parties after knowing the results. The consulted sources do not include the corresponding decree, so I cannot assign an official constitution date to these elections.

The Congress session begins under a Board of Elders: presided over by the oldest elected deputy present, assisted by the two youngest as secretaries. The convocation decree, the list of elected members, and any filed electoral litigation appeals are read, indicating which deputies might be affected.

2. Election of the Congress Board

Next, the Board is elected, the body that directs and organizes parliamentary activity. Article 37's procedure distinguishes three elections:

• Presidency: each deputy writes a name. An absolute majority is required in the first vote; if no one achieves it, the two candidates with the most votes compete, and the one with more votes is elected.
• Four vice presidencies: elected simultaneously, with one name per ballot. The positions correspond, in order, to the four most voted persons.
• Four secretariats: the same system is used. Ties are resolved through new votes among the tied candidates.

The elected members take their positions. The President takes an oath or promise to uphold the Constitution and requests the same from the other deputies by alphabetical roll call. Then, the President declares the Congress constituted and communicates its constitution to the King, the Senate, and the Government.

3. Parliamentary groups and solemn opening

The Congress groups must be constituted by a written communication addressed to the Board within five days following the constitutive session. They must identify their members, their name, and their spokesperson. As a general rule, regulatory deadlines counted in days are business days; the Board may agree to modify them within regulatory limits.

Fifteen deputies are required, or at least five accompanied by the electoral percentages provided in article 23. Those who do not join another group become part of the Mixed Group.

The solemn opening is a subsequent act: article 5 provides for it to be held within fifteen days following the constitutive session, with the regulatory counting rules. It does not replace the constitution of the Chamber.

Scope of this answer: the consulted text allows specifying the Congress procedure but does not complete the constitutional and electoral deadlines nor the Senate's own procedure. It also does not allow presenting a complete official calendar for after November 29.

The acting Prime Minister retains the responsibility to lead the Executive and ensure the continuity of its activity, but does not have the same freedom of political action as a Prime Minister with full parliamentary confidence. Their actions must focus on the ordinary handling of public affairs, facilitating the formation of the new Government, and preparing the transfer of powers. Exceptionally, they may make decisions that exceed this ordinary management if there is proven urgency or a duly justified general interest.

Duration and purpose of this situation

After the elections, the outgoing Government continues in office to avoid a power vacuum. It is important to specify the time limit: this situation lasts until the new Government takes office, it does not end simply with the investiture vote of the Prime Minister.

The objective is to ensure that the Administration and public services continue functioning, without the outgoing Executive taking advantage of this period to impose decisions that belong to the next one. Therefore, being in office does not mean ceasing to govern, but governing with limited political capacity.

What managing ordinary affairs means

The decisive criterion is not only the economic or administrative importance of a decision. According to the jurisprudential explanation collected in the consulted documentation, ordinary handling includes matters whose resolution does not establish new political orientations nor conditions, commits, or prevents those that the new Government must set.

Consequently, the Prime Minister can maintain coordination of the Executive and the necessary management so that public activity does not stop. However, they must avoid using this continuity to develop a new political agenda. The assessment requires examining each specific measure: its content, effects, and the margin of decision it leaves to the incoming Government.

What can be done exceptionally

The limitation to ordinary matters is not absolute. It is possible to act beyond them for two reasons:

• Proven urgency: when the decision cannot wait for the constitution of the new Executive.
• Duly justified general interest: when there are sufficient reasons to adopt the measure during this period.

Therefore, it is not enough to consider an action politically convenient: it must be justified why it is appropriate to adopt it while the Government is acting. These exceptions allow responding to public needs without turning institutional continuity into a general authorization to govern without restrictions.

Limits of the Prime Minister and the Government as a whole

It is important to distinguish decisions that correspond personally to the Prime Minister from those adopted by the Government as a collegiate body. The consulted documentation expressly states that the acting Prime Minister cannot raise a vote of confidence nor propose to the King the calling of a consultative referendum.

For its part, the acting Government cannot approve bills to submit to the Cortes nor approve the General State Budget draft. Additionally, legislative delegations granted by the Cortes are suspended during this period.

It can approve royal decree-laws when extraordinary and urgent necessity concur. This power corresponds to the Government, not the Prime Minister alone. Royal decree-laws must be submitted for validation — the vote to maintain them in force — within thirty days, before the Permanent Deputation or the already constituted Congress, as appropriate.

Control and responsibility

The acting Government is not exempt from parliamentary control. The consulted documentation recalls that the Constitutional Court recognized the possibility of exercising it also during this period. In short, the Prime Minister must ensure the continuity of the State, justify exceptional actions, and respect the decision-making space of the next Executive.

The last general elections held in Spain before November 29, 2026 were on July 23, 2023. The PP came first in votes and deputies, with 137 seats, followed by the PSOE, with 121. No candidacy reached alone the 176 deputies that mark the absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies.

Congress results

The final distribution of the 350 seats was as follows. Percentages correspond to the whole of Spain, not only to the territories where each candidacy ran; data come from the official BOE publication.

• People's Party (PP): 8,160,837 votes, 33.06% and 137 deputies. It was the most voted candidacy and the one that obtained the greatest representation.
• Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE): 7,821,718 votes, 31.68% and 121 deputies. This total includes the PSC and associated socialist candidacies.
• Vox: 3,057,000 votes, 12.38% and 33 deputies. It occupied third position both in votes and seats.
• Sumar: 3,044,996 votes, 12.33% and 31 deputies. This figure gathers the candidacies integrated in this coalition in the different constituencies.
• Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC): 466,020 votes, 1.89% and 7 deputies.
• Junts per Catalunya: 395,429 votes, 1.60% and 7 deputies.
• Euskal Herria Bildu (EH Bildu): 335,129 votes, 1.36% and 6 deputies.
• Basque Nationalist Party (PNV): 277,289 votes, 1.12% and 5 deputies.
• Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG): 153,995 votes, 0.62% and 1 deputy.
• Canarian Coalition (CC): 116,363 votes, 0.47% and 1 deputy.
• Navarrese People's Union (UPN): 52,188 votes, 0.21% and 1 deputy.

Main figures of the result

The gap between the PP and PSOE was 16 seats and 339,119 votes. In percentage, the difference was 1.38 points. The PP was 39 deputies short of the absolute majority, while the PSOE lacked 55 to reach that threshold alone, according to the official definitive result.

Vox and Sumar obtained very close results in votes: they were separated by 12,004 ballots and 0.05 percentage points. However, Vox got two more deputies. These figures show why it is advisable to distinguish between number of votes, national percentage, and parliamentary representation: they are three different measures of the electoral result (BOE, 23J results).

Deputies are distributed by constituencies, not through a direct conversion of the national percentage into seats. Therefore, it also matters where the support is concentrated. ERC and Junts, for example, ended with seven deputies each despite obtaining different amounts of votes, as can be verified in the official results list.

What sums the Congress left

The PP and Vox gathered 170 deputies, six less than the absolute majority. Adding UPN's seat, the sum reached 171. On the other hand, PSOE and Sumar totaled 152 deputies, 24 less than that threshold. These are arithmetic sums of the electoral distribution, not additional candidacies nor a joint result presented to the polls (Demócrata, 23J balance).

In short, the result to be used as a reference prior to November 29 is the definitive one from July 2023, not a subsequent poll. The above breakdown corresponds exclusively to the Congress: it should not be confused with the Senate result nor with group changes that might occur during the legislature.