Ramón Espinar Gallego dies at 72, first president of the Assembly of Madrid

The President of the Assembly of Madrid is the highest authority of the Chamber, and their legal status is basically defined in the Statute of Autonomy of the Community of Madrid (Organic Law 3/1983) and, in detail, in the Regulations of the Assembly of Madrid, approved by the Plenary on February 7, 2019, and subsequently amended. Their functions are grouped into four main blocks: institutional representation, direction of parliamentary work, powers of order and discipline, and other relevant functions in the regional system.

1. Institutional representation of the Chamber

According to the Regulations (art. 55.1), the Presidency holds the sole representation of the Assembly of Madrid. This means that:

• They represent the Assembly in all official acts and relations with other institutions, both regional, state, and international.
• They lead the Board of the Chamber and preside over the Spokespersons' Board (art. 58.3), key bodies in the internal organization of Parliament.
• They act as the formal interlocutor before the Government Council of the Community of Madrid, which may attend the Spokespersons' Board through a representative (art. 58.4).

From the statutory point of view, the Statute of Autonomy establishes that the Assembly elects from among its members the President, the Board, and the Permanent Deputation, and that the Spokespersons' Board meets under the presidency of the President of the Assembly. This reinforces their status as a central figure in the regional institutional architecture.

2. Organization and direction of parliamentary work

The president is responsible for ensuring the “smooth running of parliamentary work” (art. 55.1 of the Regulations). Among their powers are:

• Calling the Plenary: the Plenary “shall be convened by the Presidency” (art. 77.2), on their own initiative or at the request of at least one Parliamentary Group or one-fifth of the deputies.
• Calling the Board and the Spokespersons' Board: the Board meets “at the call of the Presidency” (art. 50.1) and the Spokespersons' Board also meets at the call of the Presidency (art. 59.1), on their own initiative or at the request of the groups.
• Direction of debates: the president directs the debates of the Plenary, orders interventions, and guarantees the regular development of sessions (art. 55.1).
• Compliance and interpretation of the Regulations: they are responsible for “complying with and enforcing the regulations and, in exercising their powers of ordering and directing debates, interpreting them in cases of doubt and supplementing them in cases of omission” (art. 55.2), without prejudice to the general interpretation competence attributed to the Board (art. 49.g), to which they refer more structurally.
• Calling the Permanent Deputation: it operates between sessions or when the Assembly expires or is dissolved, and is convened “by the Presidency” (art. 81.1).

3. Powers of order and discipline in sessions

The Regulations recognize the Presidency a central position in matters of parliamentary order and discipline:

• In general, the president “maintains order in debates” (art. 55.1) and has the typical powers of calling to order, withdrawing the floor, and, if applicable, adopting disciplinary measures against behaviors that disrupt the session.
• Article 35 of the Regulations, regulating the sanctioning procedure, expressly distinguishes cases of parliamentary discipline and order, whose competences correspond to the Presidency of the Assembly or the Commission, depending on whether they are plenary or commission sessions.
• The Secretariats of the Board “assist the Presidency in sessions to ensure order in debates and correctness of votes” (art. 57), which shows that the ultimate power of order control lies with the Presidency.

These disciplinary powers are always exercised under the protection of the Regulations and the general principles of administrative sanctioning procedure, to which the Regulations themselves refer.

4. Other relevant functions

In addition to the above, regional regulations assign the president other important functions:

• Functions in the investiture: according to the Statute of Autonomy, after each renewal of the Assembly or when there is a vacancy in the Presidency of the Community, the President of the Assembly, after consulting with group representatives, proposes a candidate for the Presidency of the Community, who presents their program and requests the confidence of the Chamber.
• Relations with the Government and Administration: several requests for information from deputies and commissions to the Government Council or other administrations are directed “through the Presidency of the Assembly” (arts. 18, 19, and 70 of the Regulations), positioning it as a formal channel of institutional communication.
• Economic-administrative management: regarding internal government, the president is responsible for “the recognition of obligations and the proposal and ordering of payments charged to the Assembly's Budget, as well as the commitment of income and the ordering of income in favor of said Budget” (art. 55.2), in coordination with the Board.
• Participation in commissions: the Presidency of the Assembly, and by delegation the Vice Presidencies, may “call and preside over any Commissions,” although they only have a vote in those of which they are members (art. 67.3).

Overall, the President of the Assembly of Madrid is configured as a comprehensive parliamentary authority, combining the institutional representation of the Chamber, the political and technical direction of its work, the maintenance of order and discipline, and a key role in the investiture of the regional president and the internal government of Parliament.

With the information available in the tools consulted in this iteration, it is not possible to reliably reconstruct either:

• the exact years in which Ramón Espinar Gallego (Ramón Espinar Merino) was a deputy in the Assembly of Madrid, nor
• the detailed results of the PSOE (total votes, percentage, and seats) in the regional elections of the Community of Madrid held in those same years.

The automatic searches carried out followed, in summary, two steps:

• Attempting to locate in public office and political actor databases «Ramón Espinar Gallego» and name variants (including the one you mention, Ramón Espinar Merino) specifically linked to the Assembly of Madrid.
• Attempting to locate, through press and public document search engines, both the parliamentary biography of Ramón Espinar and the electoral results of the PSOE in the Madrid regional elections of potentially relevant years (2011, 2015, 2019).

The first block of searches (official profiles) did not return any record associated with «Ramón Espinar» in the internal databases of regional officials or Madrid deputies. The only robust matches in those databases concern:

• Other surnames «Espinar» unrelated to Podemos or the Assembly of Madrid in the period of interest.
• Current political actors whose activity is unrelated to the question (for example, socialist or Más Madrid leaders in the current legislature).

The second block of searches, focused on press and varied web documentation, centered on two types of queries:

• Biographies and career profiles of Ramón Espinar Merino in his Madrid stage (combining terms such as «regional deputy», «Assembly of Madrid», «Podemos», «2015», «2019»).
• Direct queries about «official results» or «detailed results» of the PSOE in the Madrid regional elections of 2011 and 2015, as well as socialist results in the 2019 regional elections in the Community of Madrid.

These searches mainly returned:

• Political analysis articles and recent polls about Madrid (for example, surveys on PSOE and Más Madrid from 2023 onwards).
• News mentioning the Madrid PSOE, its current leadership, or the Assembly of Madrid, but without complete historical numerical data of regional elections.
• Content unrelated to the question (sector press releases, information from other autonomous communities or about general elections).

No piece has been recovered in this iteration that simultaneously offers:

• a clear delimitation of the years of mandate as a regional deputy of Ramón Espinar in the Assembly of Madrid, and
• the official results of the PSOE in the regional elections of the Community of Madrid held in those years, with the level of detail you request (total votes, percentage, and number of seats).

Given the framework of tool use in this session, and the instructions that require not completing data with information external to what was found in this turn's searches, I cannot provide you with concrete figures or reconstruct the reference years without speculation. It would be methodologically incorrect to offer you vote numbers, percentages, or seats not supported by any of the recovered documents.

If you need those data with official precision, I suggest going directly to:

• The official electoral results of the Community of Madrid, usually published and openly maintained by the Community itself (electoral data portal or competent department in local and regional administration).
• The historical results of the Ministry of the Interior, where votes and seats by party in regional elections of each autonomous community are usually detailed.
• The deputy profiles of the Assembly of Madrid, where the legislature, date of seat acquisition, and, if applicable, date of resignation or end of mandate are usually indicated.

With these three combined sources, it is possible to answer your question exactly: identify the specific years Ramón Espinar was a regional deputy and, for each election held in those years, see how many votes, what percentage, and how many seats the PSOE obtained.

I'm sorry I cannot go further in this answer with the information accessible in this iteration. If in the future searches are relaunched on specific official sources (Community of Madrid electoral portal, Ministry of the Interior, etc.) and result tables are recovered, then I could numerically synthesize those data for you.

In the Community of Madrid, the requirements to access a counselor position in the regional Government (member of the Government Council other than the President) are mainly regulated in the Statute of Autonomy and in Law 1/1983, of December 13, on the Government and Administration of the Community of Madrid, both with subsequent reforms.

1. Applicable rules and Government structure

The Statute of Autonomy of the Community of Madrid, approved by Organic Law 3/1983, of February 25 (text in BOE), in its regulation of the Government of the Community establishes:

• That the Government of the Community of Madrid is the collegiate body that directs the Community's policy, exercises executive and administrative functions, and regulatory power in matters not reserved to the Assembly.
• That the Government is composed of the President, the Vice Presidents, if any, and the Counselors, who are appointed and dismissed by the President.
• That to be a Vice President or Counselor it is not necessary to be a deputy of the Assembly of Madrid.
• That the members of the Government cannot engage in other labor, professional, or business activities other than those derived from their position; and it refers to a law of the Assembly the regulation of the legal regime and status of its members.

This detailed regulation is developed in Law 1/1983, of December 13, on the Government and Administration of the Community of Madrid (text in BOE), amended by various subsequent laws.

2. Formal requirements to be a counselor

Neither the Statute nor Law 1/1983 set a specific list of positive requirements (specific age, degree, etc.) to be a counselor. In practice, the general requirements of the legal system for holding public office apply: legal capacity and full enjoyment of civil and political rights, as well as not incurring causes of incompatibility or prohibition.

From the statutory-organizational point of view, the key elements are:

• Appointment and dismissal: counselors are freely appointed and dismissed by the President of the Community of Madrid, in accordance with the Statute and Law 1/1983.
• Being a deputy is not necessary: the Statute expressly establishes that to be vice president or counselor it is not required to be a member of the Assembly. Therefore, people outside the regional Parliament can be appointed as counselors.
• Personal status: Law 1/1983 foresees that counselors are senior government and administration bodies, entitled to the treatment of excellence and the remunerations set in the Budgets, and that their status is largely assimilated to that of the President.

3. Incompatibilities and private activity

The core of the “negative requirements” or limitations to access and remain in office lies in the regime of incompatibilities:

• The Statute provides that members of the Government may not engage in other labor, professional, or business activities other than those derived from the exercise of their office. This implies a general incompatibility with private activity while holding the counselor position.
• Law 1/1983 establishes that counselors are subject to the same incompatibility regime as the President (referring to article 6 of the same law). Thus, the prohibitions that apply to the President automatically extend to all counselors.
• This regime generally includes the prohibition of combining the position with other public or private activities that may compromise impartiality or constitute a conflict of interest, as well as restrictions regarding participation in bodies of companies linked to the regional Administration or with contracts with it.

Consequently, anyone intending to be appointed counselor and who has private activities or certain positions in companies or public bodies must, in practice, resign or cease them to avoid incompatibility. If incompatibility is detected while already in office and not corrected, it may be cause for dismissal.

4. Summary

In Madrid, access to a counselor position in the regional Government does not require being a deputy nor meeting specific positive requirements of degree or age beyond the general ones for public office. What is legally relevant is:

• Being freely appointed by the President of the Community of Madrid.
• Not being subject to incompatibilities, especially the prohibition of engaging in other labor, professional, or business activities.
• Accepting a status of exclusive dedication and reinforced incompatibility, equivalent to that of the President.

Therefore, regional regulations focus less on imposing positive material requirements to be a counselor and more on configuring a strict regime of incompatibilities and exclusive dedication, which conditions both access and permanence in office.