Prime Minister of Spain
The prime minister of Spain, officially the president of the Government, is the head of government of Spain. The prime minister nominates the ministers and chairs the Council of Ministers. In this sense, the prime minister establishes the Government policies and coordinates the actions of the Cabinet members. As chief executive, the prime minister also advises the monarch on the exercise of their royal prerogatives.
Although it is not possible to determine when the position actually originated, the office of prime minister evolved throughout history to what it is today. The role of prime minister as president of the Council of Ministers, first appears in a royal decree of 1824 by King Ferdinand VII. The current office was established during the reign of Juan Carlos I, in the 1978 Constitution, which describes the prime minister's constitutional role and powers, how the prime minister accedes to, and is removed from office, and the relationship between the prime minister and Parliament.
Upon a vacancy, the monarch nominates a candidate for a vote of confidence by the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Cortes Generales. The process is a parliamentary investiture by which the head of government is elected by the Congress of Deputies. In practice, the prime minister is almost always the leader of the largest party in the Congress, although not necessarily. The prime minister's official residence and office is Moncloa Palace in Madrid.
Pedro Sánchez, of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, has been prime minister since 2 June 2018. He first came to power after a successful motion of no confidence against former prime minister Mariano Rajoy. Since then, Sánchez has led three governments, the most—along with Adolfo Suárez—just behind fellow socialist Felipe González, prime minister from 1982 to 1996. King Felipe VI re-appointed Sánchez for the third time on 17 November 2023 after he reached a coalition agreement with Sumar and gathered the support of other minor parties. His third government took office on 21 November 2023.
Official title
The Spanish head of government has been known, since 1939, as "President of the Government".Not only is this term confusing for English speakers because Spain is not a republic, but because the parliamentary speakers are also referred to as presidents of their respective chambers. For example, both President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, referred to José María Aznar as "president" on separate occasions, and Donald Trump referred to Mariano Rajoy both as "President" and "Mr. President" during Rajoy's 2017 White House visit. While this term of address was not incorrect, it could be misleading to English speakers so prime minister is commonly used as a culturally equivalent term to ensure clarity.
Use of the term "president" dates back to 1834 and the regency of Maria Christina when, styled after the head of government of the French July Monarchy, the official title was the "President of the Council of Ministers". This remained until 1939, when the Second Spanish Republic ended. Before 1834 the figure was known as "Secretary of State", a denomination used today for junior ministers.
Spain was not unique in this regard: it was one of several European parliamentary systems, including France, Italy and the Irish Free State, that styled the head of government as 'presidents' of the government rather than the Westminster term of 'prime minister'. However the term 'president' is far older.
Origin
Since the 15th century, the Spanish monarchs have delegated their executive powers to important personages including favourites and secretaries of state. The validos, which existed since the early 15th century to the late 17th century, were people in which the monarch had the highest confidence and they exercised the Crown's power in the monarch's name. Since the 18th century, the validos disappeared and the secretaries of state were introduced. Both positions were de facto prime ministers although they can not be completely compared.On 19 November 1823, after a brief liberal democratic period called the Liberal Triennium between 1820 and 1823, King Ferdinand VII re-established the absolute monarchy and created the Council of Ministers that continues to exist today. This council, when not chaired by the monarch, was chaired by the secretary of state for foreign affairs, who acted as prime minister. This role was ratified by the Royal Statute of 1834, which constitutionalized for the first time the figure of the prime minister under the name of "President of the Council of Ministers", invested with executive powers.
During the 19th century, the position changed names frequently. After the Glorious Revolution of 1868, it was renamed President of the Provisional Revolutionary Joint and later President of the Provisional Government. In 1869, the office resumed the name of President of the Council of Ministers. Following the abdication of King Amadeus I, during the First Republic the office was known as the President of the Executive Power and was also head of state. In 1874, the office name reverted to President of the Council of Ministers.
Since its inception, the prime minister has been appointed and dismissed by the will of the monarch. Successive constitutions have confirmed this royal prerogative of the monarch in the Constitution of 1837, article 46 of the Constitution of 1845, the Constitution of 1869, and the Constitution of 1876.
With the fall of the First Republic and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty on King Alfonso XII, the office maintained its original name until the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, when it was renamed to President of the Military Directory. In 1925, the original name was restored again.File:Adolfo_Suárez,_durante_su_discurso_de_investidura_en_el_Congreso_de_los_Diputados.jpg|thumb|Adolfo Suárez delivers his inaugural address to the Congress of Deputies at the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid on March 30, 1979.|leftThe Republican Constitution of 1931 provided for the prime minister and the rest of the government to be appointed and dismissed by the President of the Republic but they were responsible before the Parliament and the Parliament could vote to dismiss the prime minister or a minister even against the will of the president of the republic. In the Civil War, the head of government among the Nationalists was called Chief of the Government of the State and since January 1938 the office acquired the current name, President of the Government, but between that date and 1973 the office was held by Francisco Franco as dictator of Spain.
In 1973, Francisco Franco separated the head of state from the head of government, and that division still exists today, with the prime minister democratically elected by the Parliament which is itself elected by universal suffrage, free and equal. Adolfo Suárez was the first democratically elected prime minister of the post-Franco government. He was originally appointed by King Juan Carlos I on 3 July 1976, and he was confirmed in the office by popular vote after the 1977 Spanish general election.
Royal nomination and congressional confirmation
Once a general election has been called by the monarch, political parties designate their candidates to stand for prime minister—usually the party leader. A prime minister is dismissed from office the day after the election, but remains in office as a caretaker until his/her successor is sworn in.File:Congreso de los Diputados de la XV Legislatura de España.svg|left|thumb|250x250px|The Congress of Deputies after the general election in July 2023, conforming the 15th Parliament after the restoration of democracy in 1977.
Following the general election and other circumstances provided for in the Constitution, the sovereign meets with the leaders of the parties represented in the Congress of Deputies, and then consults with the Speaker of the Congress of Deputies as representative of the whole of parliament), before nominating a candidate for the prime ministership. This process is spelled out in Section 99 of the Constitution.
By political custom established by Juan Carlos I since the ratification of the 1978 Constitution, the sovereign's nominees have usually been from parties who have a plurality of seats in the Congress. Although there is no legal requirement for this, it is seen as a royal endorsement of the democratic process—a fundamental concept enshrined in the 1978 Constitution. The largest party can end up not ruling if rival parties form a coalition—as happened in 2018 with the election of PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez. More commonly, if neither of the two major parties are able to command an absolute majority of the Congress by themselves, one will rule as a minority by adopting some aspects of the minor party platforms in an effort to attract them into parliamentary agreements to vote in the major party's favour, or at least abstain.
The monarch's order nominating a prime ministerial candidate is countersigned by the Speaker of the Congress, who then presents the nominee before the Congress of Deputies in a process known as a parliamentary investiture. During the investiture proceedings, the candidate describes their political agenda in an Investiture Speech to be debated and submitted for a vote of confidence by the Congress, effecting an indirect election of the head of government.
Confidence is awarded if the candidate receives a majority of votes in the first poll, but if the confidence is not granted, a second vote is scheduled forty-eight hours later in which a simple majority of votes cast is required. Following the second vote, if confidence by the Congress is still not reached, then the monarch again meets with political leaders and the Speaker, and submits a new nominee for a vote of confidence. If, within two months, no candidate has won the confidence of the Congress then the monarch dissolves the Cortes and calls for a new general election. The monarch's royal decree is countersigned by the Speaker of the Congress.