Ibai Llanos joins the campaign and announces an electoral debate with four candidates on YouTube

As of October 22, 2026, the general elections of November 29 have already been called, but the official electoral campaign has not yet started: it will take place from November 13 to 27. The process is currently in the preparation of candidacies and electoral organization. It is important to distinguish the electoral period, open since the call, from the fifteen days of the campaign.

What has been completed

The Royal Decree 806/2026, of October 5, published on October 6, dissolved the Congress and the Senate and called the elections. Therefore, no parliamentary approval remains to activate the elections: the call already produces effects. The official Interior guide confirms both the call and the campaign dates.

• The deadline to communicate electoral coalitions, set in the calendar published on October 16, has ended.
• The period for consultation and claims to the electoral census, held from October 12 to 19, according to the National Institute of Statistics, has concluded.
• The period to request postal voting, which began on October 6, is open.

Candidacies: the next milestone

The calendar published by Demócrata places the submission of lists for the Congress and Senate between October 21 and 26; therefore, it would currently be open. Afterwards, it foresees:

• October 28: publication of the submitted candidacies.
• Review by the electoral boards and correction of detected irregularities.
• November 2: proclamation of candidacies.
• November 3: publication of the proclaimed candidacies.

There is a relevant discrepancy: another consulted calendar shifts the submission to November 4–9 and the proclamation to the 16th. These dates do not coincide with the previous ones; therefore, to register a candidacy, the deadline must be checked directly with the competent provincial electoral board. The internal approval of the lists by a party does not replace their electoral submission and proclamation.

What remains for voters and polling stations

In addition to completing the designation and notification of those who will be part of the polling stations, the sending of documentation and the material preparation of the voting must continue. Census cards will begin to be sent on November 2, indicating the corresponding polling place and table.

• November 19: last day to request postal voting.
• From November 9: sending of documentation to those who have requested it.
• November 25: ordinary deadline to deposit that vote, according to the information on postal voting.

Once the request is recorded in the census, the voter cannot vote in person on November 29. For residents abroad, official information contemplates consular voting from November 21 to 26 and postal sending until the 24th.

Campaign and arrival at the polls

• November 13, at 00:00: the official campaign begins.
• November 23: last day to publish polls; the prohibition begins on the 24th.
• November 27, at 24:00: the campaign ends.
• November 28: reflection day, without campaign acts or electoral propaganda.
• November 29: voting from 9:00 to 20:00 and subsequent provisional count.

The procedure does not end that night: the general scrutiny will begin on December 2. The Congress confirms the constitution of both Chambers for December 23, at 10:00, not the 30th as appears in another consulted summary.

The President of the Government is the highest political authority of the executive power in Spain. The 1978 Constitution does not dedicate a single article to "define" him, but it does distribute his powers and functions mainly in articles 97, 98, 100, 112 to 115, and 116. From these, a figure with a clearly directive role and political leadership of the entire Government is outlined.

1. Direction of domestic and foreign policy

Article 97 establishes that the Government directs domestic and foreign policy, the civil and military Administration, and the defense of the State. Although it is attributed to the Government as a collegiate body, constitutional practice and the text itself (when it speaks of the President as "director" of the Government's action) place the President at the center of that direction.

In material terms, this means:

• Setting the broad lines of domestic policy (legislative reforms, spending priorities, economic, social, territorial orientation, etc.).
• Establishing the guidelines of foreign policy, always in coordination with the competent minister and respecting the powers of the Cortes in treaties and international agreements.
• Coordinating the actions of all ministries so that they respond to a coherent political program, usually the one presented in the investiture debate.

2. Direction of Government action and coordination among ministers

Article 98 states that the President directs the Government's action and coordinates the functions of the other members. He is not "just another minister," but the political direction center of the Council of Ministers.

From this derive key functions:

• Setting the agenda of the Council of Ministers and prioritizing which initiatives are raised and when.
• Resolving conflicts of competence or approach between different ministries.
• Promoting or halting regulatory projects (laws, royal decrees, royal decree-laws) according to the Government's strategy.

This coordination function reinforces that the Government acts as a collegiate body with a single political line, preventing each ministry from functioning as an independent "island."

3. Appointment and dismissal of ministers

The Constitution attributes to the King the appointment and dismissal of ministers at the proposal of the President of the Government. That is, the President:

• Proposes to the King which persons should be appointed ministers, which departments will exist, and with what denomination.
• Can request at any time the dismissal of a minister and the appointment of another.

This grants the President decisive power to configure the Cabinet: he can restructure the Government's organization, create or suppress ministries, and reshape teams to adapt them to his political priorities.

4. Political relationship with the Cortes Generales

The President is primarily responsible for the Government's relationship with the Congress and Senate. Several constitutional powers show this:

• Vote of confidence (art. 112): he can raise it to the Congress to check support for his program or a specific political decision. If he loses it, he must resign.
• Dissolution of the Chambers (art. 115): he can propose to the King the dissolution of the Congress, the Senate, or the Cortes as a whole, and the calling of general elections, within the temporal limits set by the Constitution.
• Participation in parliamentary control: he responds, directly or through his ministers, to questions, interpellations, and requests for appearances from the Chambers.

Additionally, the President is politically accountable before the Congress, which can demand his responsibility through a motion of censure, although this power formally belongs to Parliament.

5. Representation of the Government and signing of acts

The President represents the Government before the other powers of the State and externally, without prejudice to the King's functions as Head of State. In practice:

• Presides over the meetings of the Council of Ministers.
• Signs, together with the competent ministers, royal decrees and other Government acts.
• Assumes the main voice in international summits, European councils, or other intergovernmental forums.

6. Role in crisis situations and exceptional states

Although the states of alarm, exception, and siege are regulated specifically, the President of the Government has a central role in their proposal and management, since the Government, under his direction, is the one who requests or decrees these situations and reports to the Congress.

7. Political responsibility and continuity

Finally, all these powers are balanced with intense political responsibility: the President must maintain the confidence of the Congress at all times. If he loses it (due to a successful motion of censure or failing to pass the vote of confidence), he ceases and a new investiture process opens. This need for parliamentary support is the fundamental political limit to the exercise of his constitutional functions.

After the general elections of July 23, 2023, the Congress of Deputies was composed of 350 representatives, distributed among eleven candidacies with seats. The Popular Party was the formation with the most deputies, with 137, followed by the PSOE, with 121. No candidacy reached an absolute majority on its own, set at 176 seats.

Final distribution of seats

The resulting distribution from those elections was as follows, according to the official results published and the RTVE electoral summary:

• Popular Party (PP): 137 deputies. It was the leading candidacy by number of seats and obtained 16 more than the PSOE.
• Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE): 121 deputies. It was the second formation with the greatest representation in the Chamber.
• Vox: 33 deputies. It occupied the third position in the seat distribution.
• Sumar: 31 deputies. It was the fourth candidacy by representation. This figure corresponds to the entire electoral candidacy, within which Podemos ran.
• Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC): 7 deputies. It was tied in number of representatives with Junts.
• Junts per Catalunya (Junts): 7 deputies. It obtained the same number of seats as ERC.
• Euskal Herria Bildu (EH Bildu): 6 deputies. Its representation was one seat above that of the PNV.
• Basque Nationalist Party (PNV): 5 deputies. It completed the set of eight candidacies that obtained more than one representative.
• Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG): 1 deputy.
• Canarian Coalition (CC): 1 deputy.
• Navarrese People's Union (UPN): 1 deputy.

The total of these eleven candidacies sums the 350 seats of the Congress. The remaining candidacies that ran in the elections did not obtain representation.

What that distribution meant

The main characteristic of the Chamber resulting from July 23 was that the largest formation did not have a sufficient majority to reach 176 deputies on its own. The PP lacked 39 seats to reach that figure; the PSOE, 55. These calculations describe only the electoral distribution, not support agreements or subsequent decisions of the different formations.

As an arithmetic reference, PP and Vox together had 170 deputies, six below the absolute majority. If the only representative of UPN was added, the sum rose to 171. On the other hand, PSOE and Sumar gathered 152 deputies, so they needed another 24 to reach 176. None of these sums automatically implied the support of the other candidacies.

The remaining seven candidacies —ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, PNV, BNG, CC, and UPN— jointly gathered 28 deputies. Therefore, their representation was relevant to building majorities alongside the formations with the most seats. The result did not grant a single candidacy the capacity to reach an absolute majority without additional support.

Electoral result and subsequent composition

It is important to distinguish between the seats obtained in the elections and the composition of parliamentary groups at later moments. The above relationship corresponds to the result of July 23, not to changes of affiliation during the legislature.

For example, it is not correct to add Podemos deputies to the 31 of Sumar when describing that result: Podemos ran within that candidacy. Its subsequent departure from the Sumar parliamentary group did not modify the number of seats that the candidacy had obtained at the polls. This distinction allows correctly comparing the initial composition with later snapshots of the Congress.