1991 Madrid municipal election

A municipal election was held in Madrid on Sunday, 26 May 1991, to elect the 4th City Council of the municipality. All 57 seats in the City Council were up for election. It was held concurrently with regional elections in thirteen autonomous communities and local elections all across Spain.

The People's Party (PP), People's Alliance new electoral brand, went on to win a City Council election in Madrid for the first time with an absolute majority of seats. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) continued its decline in the city and lost 3 seats and around 150,000 votes, while United Left (IU) recovered from its 1987 debacle and, for the first time since 1979, increased in seats and votes. The ruling Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), whose local leader Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún had announced his intention not to run for re-election, all but disappeared from the Council after failing to meet the required 5% threshold.

As a result of the election, José María Álvarez del Manzano was elected Mayor unopposed, a post he would retain until 2003, becoming the longest-serving democratically elected Mayor of Madrid.

Under the 1978 Constitution, the governance of municipalities in Spain—part of the country's local government system—was centered on the figure of city councils (Spanish: ayuntamientos), local corporations with independent legal personality composed of a mayor, a government council and an elected legislative assembly.^[1][2] In the case of Madrid, the top-tier administrative and governing body was the City Council of Madrid.^[3][4]

Voting for local assemblies was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered and residing in the municipality of Madrid and in full enjoyment of their political rights (provided that they were not sentenced—by a final court ruling—to deprivation of the right to vote, nor being legally incapacitated), as well as resident non-nationals whose country of origin allowed Spanish nationals to vote in their own elections by virtue of a treaty.^[2][5][6]

Local councillors were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional voting system, with an electoral threshold of five percent of valid votes (which included blank ballots) being applied in each municipality.^[7] Each municipality constituted a multi-member constituency, entitled a number of seats based on the following scale:^[8]

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.^[9]

The mayor was indirectly elected by the local assembly.^[2] A legal clause required candidates to earn the vote of an absolute majority of councillors, or else the candidate of the most-voted party was to be automatically appointed to the post. In the event of a tie, the appointee was to be determined by lot.^[10]

The term of city councils in Spain expired four years after the date of their previous election, with amendments earlier in 1991 fixing election day for the fourth Sunday of May every four years (as of 2025, this has been the year before a leap year). The election decree was required to be issued between the fifty-fourth and sixtieth day prior to the scheduled election date and published on the following day in the Official State Gazette (BOE).^[11] The previous local elections were held on 10 June 1987, setting the date for election day on the fourth Sunday of May four years later, which was 26 May 1991.

Local councils could not be dissolved before the expiry of their term, except in cases of mismanagement that seriously harmed the public interest and implied a breach of constitutional obligations, in which case the Council of Ministers could—optionally—agree to call a by-election.^[12]

Elections to local councils were officially called on 2 April 1991 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 26 May.^[13]

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 ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of a determined amount of the electors registered in the municipality for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates. In the case of Madrid, as its population was over 1,000,001, at least 8,000 signatures were required.^[14]

Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:

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.

The table below lists weighted voting intention estimates. Refusals are generally excluded from the party vote percentages, while question wording and the treatment of "don't know" responses and those not intending to vote may vary between polling organisations. When available, seat projections determined by the polling organisations are displayed below (or in place of) the percentages in a smaller font; 29 seats were required for an absolute majority in the City Council of Madrid (28 in the 1987 election).

Opinion poll sources

Other