2004 Spanish general election
A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 14 March 2004, to elect the members of the 8th Cortes Generales under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 259 seats in the Senate. It was held concurrently with a regional election in Andalusia.
Since 2000, the ruling People's Party had governed with an absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies which allowed it to renegue from its previous agreements with peripheral nationalist parties. This period saw sustained economic growth, but the controversial management—and, at times, attempted cover-up—of a number of crises affected Aznar's government standing and fostered perceptions of arrogance: this included the "Gescartera case", the Prestige oil spill and the Yak-42 crash. A reform of unemployment benefits led to a general strike in 2002, and the unpopular decision to intervene in the Iraq War sparked massive protests across Spain. The incumbent prime minister, José María Aznar, had renounced to seek a third term, being replaced as party candidate by the first deputy prime minister, Mariano Rajoy.
The electoral outcome was heavily influenced by the Madrid train bombings on 11 March, which saw Aznar's government blaming the Basque separatist ETA for the attacks in spite of mounting evidence suggesting Islamist authorship. The ruling PP was accused by the opposition of staging a disinformation campaign to prevent the blame on the bombings being linked to Spain's involvement in Iraq. Results saw the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers' Party under new leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero securing an unprecedented 11 million votes, with a net gain of 39 seats up to 164, whereas the PP lost 35 seats in the worst defeat for a sitting Spanish government up to that point since 1982. Republican Left of Catalonia benefitted from the impact of the "Carod case"—the revelation that party leader Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira had held a meeting with ETA shortly after joining the new Catalan regional government of Pasqual Maragall—which gave the party publicity to the detriment of Convergence and Union. The 75.7% voter turnout was among the highest since the Spanish transition to democracy, with no subsequent general election having exceeded such figure. The number of votes cast, at 26.1 million votes, remained the highest figure in gross terms for any Spanish election until April 2019.
The election result was described by some media as an "unprecedented electoral upset". Perceived PP abuses and public rejection at Spain's involvement in Iraq were said to help fuel a wave of discontent against the incumbent ruling party, with Aznar's mismanagement of the 11M bombings serving as the final catalyst for change to happen. Zapatero announced his will to form a minority PSOE government, seeking the parliamentary support of other parties once elected.
Background
The People's Party secured an absolute majority of seats for the first time ever in the 2000 general election, which allowed Prime Minister José María Aznar to be re-elected for a second term in office. The defeat of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, which obtained its worst result since 1979, prompted the resignation of party leader Joaquín Almunia and a leadership contest being triggered, in which dark horse candidate José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero emerged as new leader in a surprise victory over President of Castilla–La Mancha José Bono.With unemployment remaining low under Spanish standards and the economy growing at a steady pace, Aznar's government continued its policy of economic liberalization in a wide range of activities : business hours, gasoline, electricity, gas, taxation, health, telecommunications, land, technology policy, professional associations and competition. This policy, together with the continued inflow of European funds, provided the State with extraordinary revenues that contributed to curb the fiscal deficit and reduce the level of public debt; however, the Spanish government's overreliance on housing as an economic engine generated a property bubble due to the purpose of many purchases being to speculate. Further, the cash rounding resulting from the introduction of the euro on 1 January 2002 led to a rise in inflation.
Domestically, Aznar had to deal with the impact of the mad cow crisis early into its second term, with a bovine spongiform encephalopathy outbreak in Spain resulting in five dead. In the summer of 2001, it was unveiled that the Gescartera investment company had engaged in profit-making activities by defrauding its clients through the misappropriation of funds and influence peddling, leading to the loss of around Pts 18 billion affecting up to 4,000 small investors; the scandal saw the resignations of then Secretary of State for the Treasury Enrique Giménez-Reyna—who was a brother to Gescartera's chairwoman—and the president of the National Securities Market Commission. An attempt by the government to reform unemployment benefits and other working conditions through decree-law led to a general strike in 2002, forcing the proposal to be watered down; the Constitutional Court of Spain would end up ruling the proposed reform as unlawful in 2007.
Terrorism was a major issue during Aznar's second tenure as prime minister, as the ETA group conducted major attacks such as the killings of former health minister Ernest Lluch and Supreme Court judge Francisco Querol Lombardero, among others. PP and PSOE signed an "Anti-Terrorist Pact" as a show of unity in response, and a new Law of Political Parties was approved in 2002 which allowed the banning of the Batasuna party over its links and support to ETA's actions. Concurrently, the Basque Nationalist Party under Lehendakari Juan José Ibarretxe sought to resolve the Basque conflict through a more pro-sovereigntist position, tabling an initiative—the Ibarretxe Plan—to totally reform the Basque Statute of Autonomy by proposing a free association of the Basque Country with Spain on an equal footing, including a right to self-determination.
This period also saw the controversial management of a number of crises by the Aznar government, receiving criticism over the perceived cover-up nature of its actions—frequently through denialism and diffusion of responsibility—which negatively affected its public standing and fostered a perception of arrogance in the exercise of power. The Prestige oil spill in November 2002 saw extensive damage to the coast of Galicia, with the Spanish government being criticized for its decision to tow the ailing wreck out to sea—where it split in two—rather than allow it to take refuge in a sheltered port, which was seen as a major contributing factor to the scale of the disaster. The Yak-42 crash in May 2003, with the death of all 75 occupants, saw a misidentification of bodies as well as questions on the plane's poor condition.
File:Bush, Barroso, Blair, Aznar at Azores.jpg|thumb|alt=José Manuel Durão Barroso, Tony Blair, George W. Bush and José María Aznar at the Azores Summit|The Azores Summit preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was unpopular among the Spanish public.
At the international level, the election of George W. Bush as new U.S. president and the 9/11 attacks saw Spain aligning closer to the United States, with Aznar voicing his support to Bush's missile shield, his "war on terror" and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, in exchange for U.S. support to Spain's fight against ETA's terrorism. Spain's rapprochement to the United States and the United Kingdom—under then Prime Minister Tony Blair—culminated in the Azores Summit on 16 March 2003, which led to the subsequent invasion of Iraq under the alleged aim of disarming Saddam Hussein's regime of "weapons of mass destruction". Aznar's decision to intervene in the Iraq War proved highly unpopular, sparking massive anti-war protests across the country. The Perejil Island crisis in July 2002, which saw a squad of the Royal Moroccan Navy temporarily occupying the uninhabited island, was resolved after a bloodless military intervention by the Spanish military.
Aznar had emphasized a number of times that he only wished to serve as prime minister for two consecutive terms. In the 2002 PP congress, he confirmed his decision not to stand for re-election, and in April 2002 he announced that he would be withdrawing from politics altogether in the next general election. Among the prospective successors were Jaime Mayor Oreja—who vacated his post of interior minister in order to run as lehendakari candidate in the 2001 Basque regional election—first deputy prime minister Mariano Rajoy and second deputy prime minister and economy and finance minister Rodrigo Rato. Rato reportedly rejected twice being singled out as Aznar's successor, resulting in Rajoy being selected for the position in September 2003.
Despite the growing unpopularity of Aznar's government, the PP was able to come out of the 2003 local and regional elections with limited losses. The outcome of the regional election in Madrid was significant as it hinted at the formation of a left-wing government in Spain's capital region; however, the Tamayazo scandal—which saw two PSOE MPs refusing to follow party discipline—prevented the regional PSOE leader from becoming president and forced a repeat election in October, which the PP won. Shortly thereafter, the November 2003 Catalan regional election saw the Socialists' Party of Catalonia —PSOE's sister party in Catalonia—oust Convergence and Union from the Catalan government after 23 years of uninterrupted rule, with a "tripartite" cabinet between PSC, Republican Left of Catalonia and Initiative for Catalonia Greens being formed under Pasqual Maragall.