The 2015 Balearic regional election was held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 9th
Parliament of the
autonomous community of the
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...
. All 59 seats in the Parliament were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with
regional elections in twelve other autonomous communities and
local elections all throughout
Spain.
All in all, the election resulted in the loss of the parliamentary majority by the
People's Party (PP), together with its worst election result ever in the islands. The
Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands (PSIB) also saw losses, but could form a
coalition government
A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
, led by socialist Francina Armengol, together with
More for Mallorca (Més) and
More for Menorca
More or Mores may refer to:
Computing
* MORE (application), outline software for Mac OS
* more (command), a shell command
* MORE protocol, a routing protocol
* Missouri Research and Education Network
Music Albums
* ''More!'' (album), by Booka ...
(MpM), obtaining
confidence and supply support from
We Can (Podemos/Podem) and the
People for Formentera (GxF) deputy. It was the first time that left-wing parties had a majority of seats in the Balearic parliament, with previous PSIB-led governments having required the support of centrist
Majorcan Union
Majorcan Union ( ca, Unió Mallorquina, UM; ) was a regional liberal party on the island of Majorca, Spain.
It was founded in October 1982, as a nationalist continuation of the then disintegrating Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD). The main f ...
(UM) to rule in 1999 and 2007. Opposition, aside from PP, was formed by
Proposta per les Illes (El Pi) and
Citizens
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
(C's), both obtaining their whole representation in Mallorca, but being close to winning seats in Ibiza and Menorca, respectively—in the latter, Ciutadella de Menorca People's Union represented the C's Menorcan branch.
Overview
Electoral system
The
Parliament of the Balearic Islands was the
devolved,
unicameral legislature of the
autonomous community of the
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...
, having legislative power in regional matters as defined by the
Spanish Constitution and the
Balearic Statute of Autonomy, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a
regional president.
Voting for the Parliament was on the basis of
universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in the Balearic Islands and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Additionally,
Balearic people abroad were required to
apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote ( es, Voto rogado). The 59 members of the Parliament of the Balearic Islands were elected using the
D'Hondt method and a
closed list
Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some inf ...
proportional representation, with an
electoral threshold of five percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the
islands of
Mallorca
Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean.
The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...
,
Menorca,
Ibiza
Ibiza (natively and officially in ca, Eivissa, ) is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, in Spain. Its l ...
and
Formentera
Formentera (, ) is the smallest and most southerly island of the Pityusic Islands group (comprising Ibiza and Formentera, as well as various small islets), which belongs to the Balearic Islands autonomous community (Spain). It covers an area of ...
, with each being allocated a fixed number of seats: 33 for Mallorca, 13 for Menorca, 12 for Ibiza and 1 for Formentera.
Election date
The term of the Parliament of the Balearic Islands expired four years after the date of its previous election, unless it was dissolved earlier. The election
decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the date of expiry of parliament and published on the following day in the Official Gazette of the Balearic Islands (BOIB), with election day taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication. The
previous election was held on 22 May 2011, which meant that the legislature's term would have expired on 22 May 2015. The election decree was required to be published in the BOIB no later than 28 April 2015, with the election taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication, setting the latest possible election date for the Parliament on Sunday, 21 June 2015.
The president had the prerogative to dissolve the Parliament of the Balearic Islands and call a
snap election, provided that no
motion of no confidence was in process and that dissolution did not occur before one year had elapsed since the previous one. In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional president within a sixty-day period from the first ballot, the Parliament was to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called.
Background
In the
2011 election, the
People's Party (PP), led by
José Ramón Bauzá
José Ramón Bauzá Díaz (born 16 November 1970) is a Spanish politician and the president of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands from 2011 to 2015. Born to a Majorcan father and a mother native to Madrid, he is licensed as a pharma ...
, regained an absolute majority, and Bauzá was elected president on 15 June 2011. A series of controversial and unpopular decrees and laws followed, the most discussed involving the language of the Balearic Islands—
Catalan in its
island dialects—and the education. These generated record-attendance demonstrations, the most important one on 29 September 2013, when more than 70,000 people demonstrated in
Palma
Palma or La Palma means palm in a number of languages and may also refer to:
Geography Africa
*Palma, Mozambique, city
** Palma District
*La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, Spain
**La Palma (DO), a ''Denominación de Origen'' for wines from the ...
protesting, amongst other things, against the changes in the language decree. It established more school hours in Spanish and English, however the majority of public schools and their teachers were not prepared to carry it out.
The main opposition party, the
Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands (PSIB), elected Francina Armengol as its new leader in February 2012 in substitution of former President of the Balearic Islands
Francesc Antich
Francesc Antich Oliver (born November 28, 1958) is a Venezuela, Venezuelan-born Politics of Spain, Spanish politician, who was the President of the Balearic Islands between 1999 and 2003, and 2007 and 2011. He also was the Secretary General of t ...
.
During the 2011–2015 legislature,
Agreement for Mallorca (ExM) joined the coalition between the
Socialist Party of Mallorca
The Socialist Party of Majorca ( ca, Partit Socialista de Mallorca, PSM; ), officially PSM–Entesa after the incorporation of Entesa per Mallorca (ExM) in February 2013, is a political party in Majorca, Spain. The PSM defines itself as socialis ...
(PSM) and
InitiativeGreens (IV) in 2013. It was renamed as
More for Mallorca (Més) in October 2013, with PSM leader Biel Barceló as its Secretary General. Its sister party
Socialist Party of Menorca formed the coalition
More for Menorca
More or Mores may refer to:
Computing
* MORE (application), outline software for Mac OS
* more (command), a shell command
* MORE protocol, a routing protocol
* Missouri Research and Education Network
Music Albums
* ''More!'' (album), by Booka ...
(MpM) with the Greens of Menorca and
Equo Menorca in July 2014.
The disbanded
Majorcan Union
Majorcan Union ( ca, Unió Mallorquina, UM; ) was a regional liberal party on the island of Majorca, Spain.
It was founded in October 1982, as a nationalist continuation of the then disintegrating Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD). The main f ...
(UM) had resulted in two parties with similar political views in the 2011 election:
Convergence for the Isles
Convergence for the Isles ( ca, Convergència per les Illes) was a Balearic nationalist political party founded in March 2011 and merged into Proposta per les Illes in November 2012.
The party's aim was to constitute a third pole in Balearic po ...
(CxI)—the political heir of UM—and
Regionalist League of the Balearic Islands (IB–Lliga). None of them obtained representation in the Parliament. In November 2012, they both united with other local parties to create a new party called
Proposal for the Isles (El Pi) to contest in the 2015 election not only in Mallorca, but also in Menorca and Ibiza. Jaume Font, former PP member and IB–Lliga leader, was elected as its president.
In addition, the Spanish politics were observing the growth of new parties like
We Can (Podemos/Podem) in the left and young parties like
Citizens
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
(C's) in the center-right. In their regional branches, Alberto Jarabo was elected as the Secretary General of Podemos in February 2015, while Xavier Pericay was elected as C's candidate in April 2015.
Parties and candidates
The electoral law allowed for
parties and
federations
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governi ...
registered in the
interior ministry
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
,
coalitions and
groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form a coalition ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.
Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
Election debates
Opinion polls
The table below lists voting intention estimates in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first and using the dates when the survey fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. Where the fieldwork dates are unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed with its background shaded in the leading party's colour. If a tie ensues, this is applied to the figures with the highest percentages. The "Lead" column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the parties with the highest percentages in a poll. When available, seat projections determined by the polling organisations are displayed below (or in place of) the percentages in a smaller font; 30 seats were required for an
absolute majority in the
Parliament of the Balearic Islands.
;
Results
Overall
Distribution by constituency
Aftermath
See also
*
2015 Balearic Island Councils elections
*
Notes
References
;Opinion poll sources
;Other
{{Regional elections in Spain in the 2010s
2015 in the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...
Regional elections in the Balearic Islands
May 2015 events in Spain