2023 Aragonese regional election
A regional election was held in Aragon on Sunday, 28 May 2023, to elect the 11th Cortes of Aragon of the autonomous community. All 67 seats in the Cortes were up for election. It was held concurrently with regional elections in eleven other autonomous communities and local elections all across Spain.
The election saw a victory for the People's Party which benefitted from the collapse of Citizens. Together with the far-right Vox, the PP was able to command a majority of seats in the Cortes. The previous government, formed by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Podemos, Aragonese Union and the Aragonese Party under two-term Aragonese president Javier Lambán, fell five seats short of a majority even with the support of United Left. As a result, PP leader Jorge Azcón was able to become new regional president through a coalition with Vox. This coalition government would last until July 2024, when Vox leader Santiago Abascal forced the break up of all PP–Vox governments at the regional level over a national controversy regarding the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors among the autonomous communities, after which the PP was left in minority.
Overview
Under the 2007 Statute of Autonomy, the Cortes of Aragon were the unicameral legislature of the homonymous autonomous community, having legislative power in devolved matters, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a regional president.Electoral system
Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Aragon 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. Amendments to the electoral law in 2022 abolished the "begged" or expat vote system, under which Spaniards abroad were required to apply for voting before being permitted to vote. The expat vote system was attributed responsibility for a major decrease in the turnout of Spaniards abroad during the years it had been in force.The Cortes of Aragon were entitled to a minimum of 65 and a maximum of 80 seats, with the electoral law setting its size at 67. All members were elected in three multi-member constituencies—corresponding to the provinces of Huesca, Teruel and Zaragoza, with each being allocated an initial minimum of 14 seats and the remaining 25 being distributed in proportion to their populations —using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional voting system, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes being applied in each constituency. The use of the electoral method resulted in an effective threshold based on the district magnitude and the distribution of votes among candidacies.
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Cortes constituency was entitled the following seats:
| Seats | Constituencies |
| 35 | Zaragoza |
| 18 | Huesca |
| 14 | Teruel |
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.
Election date
The term of the Cortes of Aragon expired four years after the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier. The election decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the scheduled date of expiry of parliament and published on the following day in the Official Gazette of Aragon, with election day taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication. The previous election was held on 26 May 2019, which meant that the legislature's term would have expired on 26 May 2023. The election decree was required to be published in the BOA no later than 2 May 2023, with the election taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication, setting the latest possible date for election day on Sunday, 25 June 2023.The regional president had the prerogative to dissolve the Cortes of Aragon and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process and that dissolution did not occur before one year had elapsed since the previous one. In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a regional president within a two-month period from the first ballot, the Cortes were to be automatically dissolved and a fresh election called.
Following speculation in late 2021 on possible snap elections in Andalusia and Castile and León to be held by the spring of 2022, as well as a similar move being considered in the Valencian Community by regional president Ximo Puig, it transpired that President Javier Lambán was evaluating the opportunity of a simultaneous early election in Aragon in order to benefit from an improving economic outlook following the end of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic-induced economic recession and catch the regional People's Party leaderless and off-guard. On 11 November, Lambán ruled out such possibility and maintained that the election would be held in May 2023, together with the regularly scheduled local and regional elections.
The Cortes of Aragon were officially dissolved on 4 April 2023 with the publication of the dissolution decree in the BOA, setting election day for 28 May and scheduling for the chamber to reconvene on 23 June.
Outgoing parliament
The table below shows the composition of the parliamentary groups in the chamber at the time of dissolution.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 at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates. 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:
In September 2021, citizen collectives of the so-called "Empty Spain", a coined term to refer to Spain's rural and largely unpopulated interior provinces, agreed to look forward for formulas to contest the next elections in Spain, inspired by the success of the Teruel Existe candidacy in the November 2019 Spanish general election. By December 2021, the platform was seeking to field candidacies in all three Aragonese provinces ahead of the next regional election.