On Sunday, May 28, 2023, local elections were held in Spain, which were a kind of dress rehearsal before the parliamentary elections to be held in the summer.
The biggest winner of the local elections is the People's Party (Partido Popular, PP), which won 31.5% of the vote (9 percentage points more than in the previous local elections in 2019).
The main left-wing party, the PSOE, maintained its support – in 2023, 28% of voters voted for it (1 pp less than in 2019), while the main coalition partner Podemos (as well as the liberal Ciudadanos party) suffered heavy losses, which meant that, thanks to the good result of the right-wing VOX party,which won 7.18% of the vote (double the number in 2019), the PP and VOX coalition took power (from the PSOE) in several important provinces, including the Province of Valencia, Cantabria, Aragon and the Balearic Islands.
In Madrid, the position of the Partido Popular has been clearly strengthened - 47% of the vote gives this party 53% of the seats in the local parliament and Isabel Díaz Ayuso retains the mayoral seat.
The mayor's seat is likely to be retained by Ada Colau (Barcelona en Comu) in Barcelona.
Meanwhile in Valencia, María José Catalá of VOX is likely to become the new mayor.
In the face of the poor result of the ruling coalition in Spain (PSOE and Podemos), Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on May 29, 2023, the dissolution of parliament and early parliamentary elections for July 23, 2023.
All data and graphs by El Pais.