The Spaniards are called to the polls this Sunday, May 28 for municipal and regional elections which will concern 12 of the 17 autonomous communities of the country.
This long-awaited double ballot should give indicators of the forces present and impact the political spectrum, and is therefore perceived as a kind of mid-term election.
At the end of the electoral campaign, which ended Friday at midnight, two major trends emerged to fight this first battle, as a preamble to the general elections scheduled for the end of the year.
On the one hand, the pacts that the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), majority in the central government, can conclude with other formations and the way in which it will manage this reality, in the face of the opposition, and the pacts ”Parti Populaire (PP)+Vox”, which could put the main right-wing party in countless uncomfortable situations, due to the influence of the aggressive speech of Vox.
Faced with these scenarios, the PSOE wants to recover the ground lost in the 2019 elections, based on regional proposals, while harshly attacking the pacts between the PP and the far-right Vox party, particularly in Castile- Leon.
On the other hand, the PP is betting on a framework to mobilize possible dissatisfaction with the PSOE government and Podemos, presenting these elections as a test for the Chief Executive and the Socialists, Pedro Sánchez. Consequently, the popular have focused the campaign on a political discourse that is more general than local.
Here are the key figures of this election:
– Voters will vote for the choice of:
- Councilors of municipalities.
- Mayors of municipalities.
- Councilors of the island councils of the Canary archipelago.
– During these elections, 35,539,083 voters will be able to vote for 67,152 councillors, 97 mayors of municipalities, 157 councilors of island councils. Among the voters, there are 414,692 foreigners residing in Spain.
– 1,767,909 new voters will vote for the first time in regional and municipal elections.
– In 44 municipalities out of the 8,131 that make up the country, no candidacies have been declared, which means that elections in these municipalities will take place within six months, in accordance with article 181 of Organic Law 5/1985 of the June 19, 1985 on the general electoral system.
– Voting will take place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in 22,901 polling stations. 181,728 citizens will be part of the 60,576 polling stations as holders, while 363,456 have been called as substitutes. About 215,000 ballot boxes and 59,000 voting booths were prepared for the day.
– The budget for these elections amounts to 203,667,880.95 euros.
– The May 28 elections are the twelfth local elections held in Spain. The Spaniards first elected their municipal representatives on April 3, 1979. Subsequent local elections were held on May 8, 1983, June 10, 1987, May 26, 1991, May 28, 1995, June 13, 1999 , May 25, 2003, May 27, 2007, May 22, 2011, May 24, 2015, and most recently May 26, 2019.
– Security will be provided by 98,991 agents of the State Security Forces and Corps belonging to the National Police, the Civil Guard, the Autonomous Regional Police and the Local Police. This is the largest security operation deployed to date during an election.