1983 Aragonese regional election

Background

Aragon had been granted a pre-autonomic regime in March 1978, resulting in the appointment of the first General Deputation of Aragon with Juan Antonio Bolea at its helm. After the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, the process for negotiating and approving a statute of autonomy for Aragon was initiated in September 1979, after local councils—with the support of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), the Regionalist Aragonese Party (PAR) and the Communist Party of Spain (PCE)—started applying to meet the requirements set down in Article 151 of the Constitution for the "fast-track" procedure for autonomy. Political conflict arose as the governing Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), concerned that all regions could attempt to achieve maximum devolution within a short timeframe, ruled in January 1980 that all autonomic processes other than those of the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia were to be transacted under the "slow-track" procedure of Article 143; the difference between both procedures being the pace in the process of devolution.

The decision caused outcry among opposition parties and led to the application process bogging down, as some Aragonese local councils had applied for Article 151, others clung on to the route of Article 143 and many others did not specify any preference, resulting in an insufficient support for either of the two constitutional procedures for autonomy. Similar complications arose in the Valencian Country and the Canary Islands, and parties agreed to hold talks to re-activate the autonomy process, leading to an inter-party agreement in May 1981—which was not joined by the PAR—in favour of the application of Article 143, as long as Aragon was guaranteed an autonomy equivalent to that provided for in Article 151 within five years, and in the drafting of a regional Statute.

Concurrently, the pre-autonomic General Deputation had seen a change in leadership in March 1981, when Juan Antonio Bolea was replaced by Gaspar Castellano. The former would end up leaving the party over disagreements with the regional government's policy both in the autonomic procedure to adopt—Bolea had been a staunch defender of Article 151's application from the beginning—and the so-called "Ebro mini-transfer" to Tarragona (), opposed by Bolea. Further tensions within UCD over the electoral system to be established by the Statute led to an internal party crisis, which was further aggravated after the split of former prime minister Adolfo Suárez's Democratic and Social Centre (CDS). The Statute would be finally approved on 10 August 1982, coming into force on 5 September. As a result of UCD securing a majority in the newly elected Provisional Assembly, its candidate Gaspar Castellano was re-elected, this time as the first president of the autonomous community of Aragon. After the UCD's collapse in the region in the 1982 general election, Castellano resigned as regional president, being replaced by Juan Antonio de Andrés, who maintained UCD's control over the regional government until the celebration of the May 1983 regional election.

Overview

Under the 1982 Statute of Autonomy, the Cortes of Aragon were the unicameral legislature of the homonymous autonomous community, having legislative power in devolved matters, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a regional president.

Electoral system

Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Aragon and in full enjoyment of their political rights.

The Cortes of Aragon were entitled to 66 seats in its first election. All members were elected in three multi-member constituencies—corresponding to the provinces of Huesca, Teruel and Zaragoza, with each being allocated a fixed number of seats—using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional voting system, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes (which included blank ballots) being applied in each constituency. The use of the electoral method resulted in an effective threshold based on the district magnitude and the distribution of votes among candidacies.

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Cortes constituency was entitled the following seats:

The law did not provide for by-elections to fill vacated seats; instead, any vacancies that occurred after the proclamation of candidates and into the legislative term were to be covered by the successive candidates in the list and, when required, by the designated substitutes.

Election date

The General Deputation of Aragon was required to call an election to the Cortes within from 1 February to 31 May 1983. The Cortes of Aragon could not be dissolved before the date of expiry of parliament, except in the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional president within a two-month period from the first ballot. In such a case, the Cortes were to be automatically dissolved and a snap election called, with elected deputies merely serving out what remained of their original four-year term.

On 7 March 1983, it was confirmed that the first election to the Cortes of Aragon would be held on Sunday, 8 May, together with regional elections for twelve other autonomous communities as well as the regularly scheduled nationwide local elections.

The election to the Cortes of Aragon was officially called on 10 March 1983 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the Official Gazette of Aragon (BOA), setting election day for 8 May.

Provisional parliament

The regional Statute established a provisional assembly—to remain in place until an election to the actual Cortes of Aragon could be held—which was to be made up of 66 members designated by political parties which had obtained at least five percent of the valid votes cast at the regional level in the 1979 Spanish general election (distributed by applying the D'Hondt method to provincial results). As a result, the composition of the Provisional Assembly of Aragon, upon its constitution in September 1982, was as indicated below:

Unlike what happened in other autonomous communities, the composition of the Aragonese regional assembly did not change as a result of the 1982 general election, despite efforts from the PAR for statutory transitory provisions to be applied extensively to recalculate the seat distribution according to the most recent general election's results.

Parties and candidates

The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, alliances and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form an alliance ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant electoral commission within fifteen days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one permille—and, in any case, 500 signatures—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:

The electoral disaster of the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) in the October 1982 general election and the outcome of its extraordinary congress held in December, in which the party's leadership chose to transform the UCD into a christian democratic political force, brought the party to a process of virtual disintegration as many of its remaining members either switched party allegiances, split into new, independent candidacies or left politics altogether. Subsequent attempts to seek electoral allies ahead of the incoming 1983 local and regional elections, mainly the conservative People's Alliance (AP) and the christian democratic People's Democratic Party (PDP), had limited success due to concerns from both AP and UCD over such alliance policy: AP strongly rejected any agreement that implied any sort of global coalition with UCD due to the party's ongoing decomposition, and prospects about a possible PDP–UCD merger did not come into fruition because of the latter's reluctance to dilute its brand within another party. By the time the UCD's executive had voted for the liquidation of the party's mounting debts and its subsequent dissolution on 18 February 1983, electoral alliances with the AP–PDP coalition had only been agreed in some provinces of the Basque Country and Galicia.

Together with AP, the PDP had agreed to maintain their general election alliance—now rebranded as the People's Coalition—for the May local and regional elections, with the inclusion of the Liberal Union (UL), a political party created in January 1983 out of independents from the AP–PDP coalition in an attempt to appeal to former UCD liberal voters. The Coalition had seen its numbers soar from late February as a result of many former members from the UCD's christian democratic wing joining the PDP.

Opinion polls

The tables below list opinion polling results 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.

Voting preferences

The table below lists raw, unweighted voting preferences.

Results

Overall

Distribution by constituency

Aftermath

On 27 May 1983, PSOE candidate Santiago Marraco was elected by the Cortes as new Aragonese president by an absolute majority of 35 out of 66, with support from both PCE and CDS and the abstention of the PAR.

After the constitution of the Cortes, on 22 June 1983, the Zaragoza Territorial Court issued a ruling in which it removed a seat in the province of Huesca from the AP-PDP-UL coalition and granted it to the PCE. In this way, the Communist Party of Spain was left with 2 seats in the Cortes of Aragon.

Notes

References

;Opinion poll sources

;Other

Bibliography

References

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