The Official State Bulletin (BOE) made public this Tuesday the proclaimed candidacies of parties and coalitions in the 52 constituencies of the Congress and the 60 of the Senate for the general elections of next November 29, in which 350 seats will be distributed in the Lower House and 209 in the Upper House.
Last week, the BOE already reported that the political formations had submitted 929 lists in total —556 for the Congress and 373 for the Senate—, which represents 14.77% less than in the 2023 elections.
After the period enabled to correct errors, review documentation and resolve possible appeals and challenges, the definitive lists have been proclaimed today. Among the required conditions is the submission of the necessary endorsements, which must represent at least 0.1% of the electoral roll of each constituency in which one is running.
In addition, for the first time in a general election, the so-called electoral parity is applied, which requires that the candidacies for the Congress and the Senate be made up of men and women arranged alternately. Until the previous elections, the "parity principle" was in force, which established that neither sex could exceed 60% nor fall below 40% of the positions in each block of five names.
With the data collected by Europa Press, among the major parties the PP is the one that adds the most female list heads for the Congress, with 28, while Vox is the one with the fewest, with 13 women at the head of its candidacies.
In Podemos there are 27 women heading its lists for the Lower House --it is not presenting its own lists in Catalonia, Canarias, Baleares, Melilla and Comunidad Valenciana--; in the PSOE there are 27; and in Frente Amplio 18, which is not standing in Teruel or in Ceuta or in Melilla.
SALF and Frente Obrero, present in all constituencies
Along with the five major state-level formations with parliamentary representation (PSOE, PP, Vox, Frente Amplio and Podemos), other forces such as Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF), of the MEP "Alvise Pérez", and Frente Obrero, led by Roberto Vaquero, have managed to register lists in all constituencies.
Behind it is the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE), which is running in 45 provinces, and the Animalist Party With the Environment (PACMA), with lists in 36 constituencies. Next is Por Un Mundo Más Justo (M+J), which has gathered signatures to stand in around thirty constituencies for Congress. Likewise, in 13 provinces the ballot of "Escaños en blanco" will be available and in 12 the candidacy of Falange Española y de las Jons.
Álava, the constituency with the most lists for Congress
Álava is the province with the highest number of candidacies for Congress, with 15 lists. It is followed by Las Palmas, Madrid and Valencia, with 14 each, while León, Tarragona, Valladolid, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Barcelona have 13. At the opposite end, Ceuta, Ciudad Real and Melilla register only six competing formations.
In the Senate, the greatest concentration of candidacies occurs in the two archipelagos, since the larger islands (Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Mallorca) elect three senators each and the remaining ones, one. In the province of Las Palmas, 16 lists have been registered for the Upper House (four in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote and eight in Gran Canaria) and in that of Santa Cruz de Tenerife 19 are counted (five in El Hierro, La Gomera and La Palma and four in Tenerife).
In Baleares, a dozen candidacies have been registered for the Senate: two in Menorca and in Ibiza and three in Mallorca and Formentera. The latter elects a senator for the first time after the constitutional reform approved in the current legislature.
Outside the islands, Valladolid stands out, with ten candidacies that aspire to achieve representation in the Senate, and also León, Madrid, Sevilla and Álava, with nine lists each.
The constituencies with the smallest number of formations competing for a seat in the Senate are Alicante, Castellón, Ciudad Real, Ceuta and Melilla, with four candidacies in each case.
Comparison with the 2023 general elections
In the 2023 elections, the Provincial Electoral Boards admitted a total of 1,090 lists to the General Courts (550 for Congress and 540 for the Senate), 186 fewer than in 2019. In that process, 66 candidacies from extra-parliamentary parties were excluded due to formal errors, for not meeting the legal requirements or, mainly, for not providing the required endorsements.
Together, 4.892 aspirants competed on July 23, 2023 for the 350 seats of Congress and the 208 of the Senate —this year one more is elected after the constitutional change that facilitated the creation of a senator of its own for the island of Formentera—, which translated into an average of ten candidates for each seat in the Lower House and of 5,5 per place in the Senate Palace.