1995 Madrid municipal election

A municipal election was held in Madrid on Sunday, 28 May 1995, to elect the 5th City Council of the municipality. All 55 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.

People's Party (PP) incumbent José María Álvarez del Manzano again won an absolute majority of seats, improving his position relative to others as he obtained nearly 250,000 votes more than four years before. In contrast, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) plummeted to one of its worst historical results, obtaining only 16 seats, to the benefit of United Left (IU) which scored its best result to date. Turnout was one of the highest in the history of the city, at 71.2%.

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 or within the framework of Community law.^[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 election day being fixed 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 no later than the fifty-fifth 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 26 May 1991, setting the date for election day on the fourth Sunday of May four years later, which was 28 May 1995.

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 4 April 1995 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 28 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; 28 seats were required for an absolute majority in the City Council of Madrid (29 in the 1991 election).

The table below lists raw, unweighted voting preferences.

The table below lists opinion polling on leader preferences to become mayor of Madrid.

Opinion poll sources

Other