Spanish general election, 1977

‹ 1936  1979 ›
Spanish general election, 1977
All 350 seats of the Congress of Deputies and 208 of 264 seats in the Senate
June 15, 1979
		First party	Second party
Leader		Adolfo Suárez	Felipe González
Party		UCD	PSOE
Seats won		166	118
Popular vote		6,310,391	5,371,866
Percentage		34.4%	29,3%
Province-level units won by PSOE (red) and UCD (blue)
Incumbent PM Adolfo Suárez UCD PM-elect Adolfo Suárez UCD

Spain

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Spain

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The Spanish general election of 1977 took place on 15 June 1977. It was the first election since the death of Francisco Franco.

Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The elections were held using closed list proportional representation in 52 electoral districts corresponding to the 50 provinces of Spain and the African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The largest districts Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia elected 32, 31 and 15 members respectively. Other districts elected from 3 to 12 members. The exceptions were Ceuta and Melilla which were single member districts. Seats were allocated using the D'Hondt method and only lists which polled 3% of the total vote (which included votes "en blanco" i.e. for none of the above) were eligible for seats.

The elections took place against the backdrop of a poor economic situation in Spain.^[1] They were marred by demonstrations against alleged irregularities and bombings in many areas. In Barcelona, 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside the building housing the local election board. They claimed they had not been included in the census which would have given them the right to vote. Two policemen were also hurt when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at their vehicle. In Seville, three people, including two policemen, suffered minor injuries when a bomb exploded at the magistrates' court. Additionally four explosions occurred in Pamploma and two in Cordoba.^[2]

The election results were a disappointment for the Communist Party which fell short of its objective of obtaining 30 to 40 deputies.^[3]

• Voters: 18590130 (78.8% participation)
• Valid votes: 18324333
• Blank votes: 46248 (0.3% of valid votes)

Evolution of popular vote in the Spanish General Elections from the democratic transition until 2008. Voter turnout is usually high.

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