Municipal elections in Barcelona are held every four years to elect the city council. The

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

is elected indirectly by the councillors on the first plenary session of the term.

Overview

The basic level of Spanish local government are the municipalities (Spanish: ''municipios'', Catalan: ''municipis''). The city of Barcelona constitutes a municipality. The reigning institution in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

is called ''Ajuntament de Barcelona'', and is formed by the

(Catalan: ''alcalde'', fem. ''alcaldessa''), the government (Catalan: ''Comissió de govern'', although it is commonly known as ''Govern municipal'') and the legislature or city council (Catalan: ''Consell Municipal'', although it is commonly known as ''Ple de l'Ajuntament'').Ajuntament de Barcelona. Òrgans de govern
/ref> Local elections in Spain are regulated by the LOREG law. Municipal elections are held every 4 years on the last Sunday of May, in all the

municipalities of Spain The municipality ( es, municipio, , ca, municipi, gl, concello, eu, udalerria, ast, conceyu)In other languages of Spain: * Catalan/Valencian (), sing. ''municipi''. * Galician () or (), sing. ''municipio''/''bisbarra''. *Basque (), si ...

at the same time, together with other regional elections (though not in

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

) and other local-level elections, such as comarcal or provincial council elections. If European elections are scheduled to take place on the same dates, local elections must be held the same day with European Parliament elections. The size of the legislature is determined by the population count on 1 January before the election. In Barcelona, the city council currently has 41 members. Voters elect only the members of the city council; the mayor is elected indirectly. Voting is non-compulsory. Local councillors are elected using the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...

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 in ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

, with a threshold of 5 percent of valid votes, which include blank ballots. The

is elected on the first plenary session of the term by the city councillors in a single-round election. If any candidate obtains an

absolute majority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority r ...

of the votes, the candidate of the most voted party is elected as a mayor. After the plenary session, the Mayor chooses councillors to be in the government executive. Since the restoration of democracy after the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco, elections have taken place on 3 April 1979, 8 May 1983, 10 June 1987, 26 May 1991, 28 May 1995, 13 June 1999, 25 May 2003, 27 May 2007, 22 May 2011, 24 May 2015 and 26 May 2019; the next scheduled election will be on 28 May 2023.

Results

2015 election

Historical composition of the City Council

1901–1939

Until Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, only one half of the council was renewed at every election. The numbers below indicate the total seats after the election.

After 1979

External links

General Directorate of Domestic Politics, archived results back to 1976

References

{{Barcelona elections

Elections in Barcelona