Elections to the Corts of Castile and León, 2011
Encyclopedia
The 2011 elections to the Corts of Castile and León were the eighth elections to the unicameral
regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community
of Castile and León. The elections were held on 22 May 2011 to elect the 84 members of the Assembly, an increase of one seat on the previous Corts. Voting was in 9 electoral districts, corresponding to the provinces
of Castile and León.
Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage
in a secret ballot
. The electoral system used was closed list
proportional representation
with seats allocated on a provincial basis using the D'Hondt method
. Only lists which polled at least 3% of the votes in a particular province (including votes "en blanco" i.e. for "none of the above") were eligible for seats.
The elections were won by the People's Party
, which had formed the government of the region since the second democratic elections in 1987 and had won a majority of seats since the 1991 elections. Both the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
(PSOE) and Leonese People's Union lost seats, while United Left
won their first seat since the 1999 elections.
One of the first tasks of the Assembly was to elect the President of Castile and León from among their number, with the incumbent President, Juan Vicente Herrera of the PP, re-elected.
Unicameralism
In government, unicameralism is the practice of having one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Thus, a unicameral parliament or unicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of one chamber or house...
regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community
Autonomous communities of Spain
An autonomous community In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian .*Galician .*Basque . The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of "nationalities and regions" to self-government and declares the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation".Political power in Spain is...
of Castile and León. The elections were held on 22 May 2011 to elect the 84 members of the Assembly, an increase of one seat on the previous Corts. Voting was in 9 electoral districts, corresponding to the provinces
Provinces of Spain
Spain and its autonomous communities are divided into fifty provinces .In other languages of Spain:*Catalan/Valencian , sing. província.*Galician , sing. provincia.*Basque |Galicia]] — are not also the capitals of provinces...
of Castile and León.
Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
in a secret ballot
Secret ballot
The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
. The electoral system used was closed list
Closed list
Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can only vote for political parties as a whole and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected...
proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
with seats allocated on a provincial basis using the D'Hondt method
D'Hondt method
The d'Hondt method is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. The method described is named after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt who described it in 1878...
. Only lists which polled at least 3% of the votes in a particular province (including votes "en blanco" i.e. for "none of the above") were eligible for seats.
The elections were won by the People's Party
People's Party (Spain)
The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...
, which had formed the government of the region since the second democratic elections in 1987 and had won a majority of seats since the 1991 elections. Both the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...
(PSOE) and Leonese People's Union lost seats, while United Left
United Left (Spain)
The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain...
won their first seat since the 1999 elections.
One of the first tasks of the Assembly was to elect the President of Castile and León from among their number, with the incumbent President, Juan Vicente Herrera of the PP, re-elected.
Representation by province
| Number of seats per province |
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| Province | Ávila | Burgos | León | Palencia | Salamanca | Segovia | Soria | Valladolid | Zamora | Total |
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| Members | |
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Parties represented in the 2007-2011 Corts
Presidential candidates are in bold| Candidates |
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| Province | PP People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship... |
PSOE Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in... |
UPL | Notes |
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| Zamora | |
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Parties unrepresented in the 2007-2011 Corts
Presidential candidates are in bold| Candidates |
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| Province | IU United Left (Spain) The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain... |
UPyD Union, Progress and Democracy Union, Progress and Democracy is a Spanish political party founded in September 2007.It is a progressivist party, between social democracy and social liberalism. One of its goals is to build a federal system for Spain and European Union, with clear responsibilities distributed among local... |
Notes |
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| Zamora | |
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Opinion polls
| Poll | PP People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship... |
PSOE Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in... |
UPL | IU United Left (Spain) The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain... |
UPyD | Others |
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| El Mundo El Mundo (Spain) El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the... (May 2010) |
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| El Mundo El Mundo (Spain) El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the... (January 2011) |
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| El Mundo El Mundo (Spain) El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the... (April 2011) |
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Results
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| President and government | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | Seats | +/- |
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People's Party People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship... (PP) |
Juan Vicente Herrera | 737,553 | 53.35 | 53 | +5 |
| Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in... (PSOE) |
Óscar López Águeda | 423,239 | 30.61 | 29 | -4 | |
| United Left of Castile and León United Left (Spain) The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain... (IUCyL) |
69,861 | 5.05 | 1 | +1 | ||
| Leonese People's Union Leonese People's Union The Leonese People's Union is a regional political party in Castilla y León, Spain. UPL strives to establish a separate autonomous community for the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca , now in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León.UPL was founded in 1986 by a group of people... (UPL) |
26,479 | 1.92 | 1 | -1 | ||
| Union, Progress and Democracy Union, Progress and Democracy Union, Progress and Democracy is a Spanish political party founded in September 2007.It is a progressivist party, between social democracy and social liberalism. One of its goals is to build a federal system for Spain and European Union, with clear responsibilities distributed among local... (UPyD) |
47,045 | 3.40 | 0 | |||
| Castile and León Party (PCAL) | 15,871 | 1.15 | 0 | |||
| Castilla and León Party-Independent Candidate(PCAL-CI) | 8,459 | 0.61 | 0 | |||
| Party Against Bullfighting, Cruelty and Mistreatment of Animals (PACMA) | 5,309 | 0.38 | 0 | |||
| Alternative Social Movement (MASS) | 4,779 | 0.35 | 0 | |||
| Leonese Autonomist Party- Leonese Unity (PAL-UL) | 3,743 | 0.27 | 0 | |||
| Yes for Salamanca Coalition (SI) | 3,700 | 0.27 | 0 | |||
| Citizens for Blank Votes Citizens for Blank Votes Citizens for Blank Votes is a Spanish political party.In Spanish electoral law, a distinction is made between valid votes, blank votes and null votes. Blank votes are interpreted as correctly executed votes for "none of the above", and consistently about 2% of votes are blank... (CENB) |
3,602 | 0.26 | 0 | |||
| Zamoran Independent Electoral Grouping-Zamoran People's Union (ADEIZA-UPZ) | 3,323 | 0.24 | 0 | |||
| Greens of Salamanca (VERDES) | 2,759 | 0.20 | 0 | |||
| Soria Development Initiative (IDES) | 2,665 | 0.19 | 0 | |||
| The Greens-Green Group (LV-GV) | 2,622 | 0.19 | 0 | |||
| El Bierzo Party (PB) | 2,501 | 0.18 | 0 | |||
| National Democracy National Democracy (Spain) National Democracy is a far right political party in Spain, founded in 1995. It is modelled on the Front National of France, and grew indirectly out of several defunct parties like the CEDADE group and Juntas Españolas. Its leader is Manuel Canduela Serrano, a former member of Accion Radical, a... (DN) |
2,099 | 0.15 | 0 | |||
| Citizens of Burgos for Old Castile (CiBu) | 1,992 | 0.14 | 0 | |||
| Regionalist Party of the Leonese Country Regionalist Party of the Leonese Country Regionalist Party of the Leonese Country is a regional political party in Castilla y León, Spain... (PREPAL) |
1,937 | 0.14 | 0 | |||
| CIVIQUS (CIVIQUS) | 1,688 | 0.12 | 0 | |||
| Green and Castillian Coalition (VyC) | 1,560 | 0.11 | 0 | |||
| Falange Española de las JONS (FE JONS) | 1,516 | 0.11 | 0 | |||
| Castile and León Regional Unity (URCL) | 1,424 | 0.10 | 0 | |||
| International Solidarity (SAIn) | 1,255 | 0.09 | 0 | |||
| Communist Party of the People of Spain (PCPE) | 1,744 | 0.13 | 0 | |||
| San Andrés Independent Party (IxSA) | 883 | 0.06 | 0 | |||
| Merindades Initiative of Castile (IMC) | 802 | 0.06 | 0 | |||
| Leftists of Segovia (SdI) | 758 | 0.05 | 0 | |||
| El Bierzo Regional Party (PRB) | 664 | 0.05 | 0 | |||
| Humanist Party Humanist Party (Spain) The Humanist Party is a Spanish political party founded in 1984 and is a member of the Humanist International.-External links:* *... (PH) |
523 | 0.04 | 0 | |||
| Communist Unification of Spain Communist Unification of Spain Communist Unification of Spain is a political party in Spain. The group emerged around the publication Tribuna Obrera in 1968. It was constituted as UCE in 1973... (UCE) |
1,252 | 0.09 | 0 | |||
| Family and Life Party (PFyV) | 199 | 0.01 | 0 | |||
| None of the above | N/A | 47,012 | 3.3 | N/A | N/A | |
| Void | N/A | N/A | N/A |