2015 Madrid municipal election
A municipal election was held in Madrid on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the 10th 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.
Leading the People's Party local list was Esperanza Aguirre, former president of the Community of Madrid, president of the Senate of Spain and minister of Education and Culture, as well as the leader of the [People's Party of the Community of Madrid|regional People's Party (Spain)|PP branch] since 2004. Mayor Ana Botella, who succeeded Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón early into his term in December 2011, had declined re-election in September 2014. The election was an unexpectedly close race between Aguirre's PP and former judge Manuela Carmena's Podemos-supported Ahora Madrid platform. The collapse in the PP vote and the loss of its absolute majority allowed Carmena to gain power through an alliance with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, resulting in the first left-wing government in the city since 1989.
The PSOE suffered heavily from tactical voting to Ahora Madrid after it became apparent throughout the campaign that the left-of-centre vote was coalescing around Carmena's coalition. The newcomer liberal Citizens party also entered the City Council for the first time, collecting votes disenchanted with the PP and replacing Union, Progress and Democracy as the main centrist local force. United Left fell below the 5% threshold and failed to gain any representation for the first time in history.
Overview
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, local corporations with independent legal personality composed of a mayor, a government council and an elected legislative assembly. In the case of Madrid, the top-tier administrative and governing body was the City Council of Madrid.Electoral system
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, as well as resident non-national European citizens and those whose country of origin allowed Spanish nationals to vote in their own elections by virtue of a treaty.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 being applied in each municipality. Each municipality constituted a multi-member constituency, entitled a number of seats based on the following scale:
| Population | Councillors |
| <100 | 3 |
| 101–250 | 5 |
| 251–1,000 | 7 |
| 1,001–2,000 | 9 |
| 2,001–5,000 | 11 |
| 5,001–10,000 | 13 |
| 10,001–20,000 | 17 |
| 20,001–50,000 | 21 |
| 50,001–100,000 | 25 |
| >100,001 | +1 per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction +1 if total is an even number |
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.
The mayor was indirectly elected by the local assembly. 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.
Election date
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. 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. The previous local elections were held on 22 May 2011, setting the date for election day on the fourth Sunday of May four years later, which was 24 May 2015.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.
Elections to local councils were officially called on 31 March 2015 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 24 May.
Parties and candidates
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. Additionally, a balanced composition of men and women was required in the electoral lists, so that candidates of either sex made up at least 40 percent of the total composition.Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
Campaign
Electoral debates were held in Telemadrid between the candidates of the PP, PSOE, IU, UPyD, Vox, Citizens and Ahora Madrid in the last week of campaign, between 18 and 20 May. The most expected and tense moment came with the debate between PP candidate Esperanza Aguirre and AM Manuela Carmena, as the most-likely candidates to become the next Mayor of the city. Aguirre immediately accused Carmena of saying in the past that "ETA members had suffered a lot", trying to link the former judge with the terrorist group, as well as trying to discredit Carmena's career in the judiciary, which was seen as a furious attack of Aguirre on Carmena. The latter, visibly surprised, counterattacked responding that Aguirre was acting arrogantly and contemptuous to others and accusing her of allowing corruption to spread during her tenure as president of Madrid. "Please go, you've caused a lot of harm" said Carmena to Aguirre.In the last days of the campaign, especially following her debate with Aguirre, several celebrities such as actors Pilar Bardem, Carlos Bardem, Loles León, Goya Toledo, Paco León, playwright Cristina Rota, lawyer and former politician Cristina Almeida and journalist Ernesto Ekaizer expressed their support for Carmena's candidacy, with actress Eva Hache going on to say through the Twitter social network that "I don't know if we are Manuela but surely we are not the other ''. VOTE."'' Carmena had also received the support of dozens of artists who created drawings in support of Carmena's and Ahora Madrid candidacy, with the drawings themselves becoming viral in the social networks. Following the Telemadrid debate, after which Aguirre was highly criticised for her aggressive behaviour towards Carmena, supporters cast the drawings next to Aguirre's home in Malasaña. On 21 May, a Carmena's act in the center of Madrid exceeded its capacity, originally scheduled for 800 people, resulting in the closing of a street and in Carmena herself apologizing to the around 1,500 people outside that were not able to enter.