2019 Valencia municipal election
A municipal election was held in Valencia on Sunday, 26 May 2019, to elect the 11th City Council of the municipality. All 33 seats in the City Council were up for election. It was held concurrently with regional elections in twelve autonomous communities and local elections all across Spain, as well as the 2019 European Parliament election.
The election saw the Coalició Compromís of incumbent mayor Joan Ribó score its first electoral win in the city in history, with the opposition People's Party under former regional minister María José Catalá scoring its worst result since 1987. This was also the first election since 1987 without the presence of Rita Barberá, the former PP mayor between 1991 and 2015 who had died in November 2016. The Socialist Party of the Valencian Country recovered somewhat and clung into third place with 19.3% and 7 councillors. The election also resulted in a stagnation for the liberal Citizens, the entry of the far-right Vox party for the first time and the Unidas Podemos alliance—comprising both Podemos and United Left of the Valencian Country —not reaching the minimum five percent threshold to be entitled to seat allocation.
With the left-from-centre parties—Compromís and PSOE—securing an overall majority of seats against the combined PP–Cs–Vox bloc, Ribó was able to be re-elected for a second term in office as city mayor.
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 Valencia, the top-tier administrative and governing body was the City Council of Valencia.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 Valencia 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 24 May 2015, setting the date for election day on the fourth Sunday of May four years later, which was 26 May 2019.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 2 April 2019 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the BOE, setting election day for 26 May.
Outgoing council
The table below shows the composition of the political groups in the local assembly at the time of the election call.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 Valencia, as its population was between 300,001 and 1,000,000, at least 5,000 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: