2000 Spanish general election

2000 Spanish general election

← 1996 12 March 2000 2004 →
All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 208 (of 259) seats in the Senate 176 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
Opinion polls
Registered	33,969,640 4.4%
Turnout	23,339,490 (68.7%) 8.7 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader José María Aznar Joaquín Almunia Xavier Trias Party PP PSOE–p CiU Leader since 4 September 1989 21 June 1997 20 August 1999 Leader's seat Madrid Madrid Barcelona Last election 156 seats, 38.8% 141 seats, 37.6% 16 seats, 4.6% Seats won 183 125 15 Seat change 27 16 1 Popular vote 10,321,178 7,918,752 970,421 Percentage 44.5% 34.2% 4.2% Swing 5.7 pp 3.4 pp 0.4 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Francisco Frutos Iñaki Anasagasti José Carlos Mauricio Party IU EAJ/PNV CC Leader since 7 December 1998 1986 1996 Leader's seat Madrid Biscay Las Palmas Last election 19 seats, 9.4%[a] 5 seats, 1.3% 4 seats, 0.9% Seats won 8 7 4 Seat change 11 2 0 Popular vote 1,263,043 353,953 248,261 Percentage 5.4% 1.5% 1.1% Swing 3.9 pp 0.2 pp 0.2 pp
Election results by Congress of Deputies constituency Winner strength by constituency Winner strength by autonomous community
Prime Minister before election José María Aznar PP Prime Minister after election José María Aznar PP

The 2000 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 12 March 2000, to elect the 7th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 259 seats in the Senate.

The incumbent People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister José María Aznar secured an unpredicted absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies, obtaining 183 out of 350 seats and increasing its margin of victory with the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) to 2.4 million votes.^[1] The PSOE did not profit from a pre-election agreement with United Left (IU) and lost 1.6 million votes and 16 seats, coupled to the 1.4 million votes and 13 seats lost by IU. Such an alliance was said to prompt tactical voting for the PP, which also benefited from economic growth, a moderate stance throughout the legislature and internal struggles within the opposition parties. For the first time since the Spanish transition to democracy, the PP results exceeded the combined totals for PSOE and IU.^[2] PSOE leader Joaquín Almunia announced his resignation immediately after results were known.^[3]

Regional and peripheral nationalist parties improved their results, except for Convergence and Union (CiU)—which had been in electoral decline for a decade—and Herri Batasuna/Euskal Herritarrok (EH), which urged to boycott the election and called for their supporters to abstain in the Basque Country and Navarre.^[4][5] The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) benefitted from EH's absence and gained two seats, whereas both Canarian Coalition (CC) and the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) had strong showings in their respective regions. Initiative for Catalonia (IC), which had split from IU in 1997, clinged on to parliamentary representation but suffered from the electoral competition with United and Alternative Left (EUiA), IU's newly-founded regional branch in Catalonia which failed to secure any seat. This would be the first and only general election in which both parties would contest each other.

This election featured some notable feats: this was the first absolute majority the PP obtained in a general election, with its best result in both popular vote share and seats up until then, a result only exceeded in 2011. In contrast, the PSOE got its worst election result in 21 years. This was also the second time a party received more than 10 million votes, the last time being in 1982, when 10.1 million voters voted for Felipe González's PSOE. The voters' turnout registered was one of the lowest in democratic Spain for Spanish election standards, with only 68.7% of the electorate casting a vote.

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