Alicante (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Alicante is one of the 52 electoral districts (circunscripciones) used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the lower chamber of the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

Parliament, the Cortes Generales

Cortes Generales

The Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...

. It was first contested in modern times in the 1977 General Election

Spanish general election, 1977

The Spanish general election of 1977 took place on 15 June 1977. It was the first election since the death of Francisco Franco.Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The elections were held using closed list proportional representation in 52 electoral districts...

. It is the fifth largest district in terms of electorate after Madrid

Madrid (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Madrid is one of the 52 electoral districts used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. It has the largest electorate of all the 52 districts. Madrid is the largest city...

, Barcelona

Barcelona (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Barcelona is one of the 52 electoral districts used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. When first contested in modern times in the 1977 General Election, Barcelona was the largest electoral district in Congress in terms of...

, Valencia

Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Valencia is one of the 52 electoral districts used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies—the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. It is the third largest district in Congress in terms of the numbers of deputies elected, as it elects sixteen deputies out of the total...

and Sevilla

Sevilla (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Seville is one of the 52 electoral districts used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies - the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. It was first contested in modern times in the 1977 General Election. It is the fourth largest district in terms of electorate...

. It has been one of the fastest growing districts in recent years with the electorate growing by 20% between 1993 and 2004 compared to the Spanish average of 11% growth in electorate and consequently gained an extra seat for the 2008 general election.

Alicante

Alicante

Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...

is the largest town with over 230,000 voters in the year 2008. With 162,000 voters Elche was the only other municipality with an electorate over 100,000. The next largest municipalities were Alcoy

Alcoy

Alcoy may stand for:* Alcoy, Spain , a municipality in the province of Alicante, Spain* Alcoy, Cebu, province of Cebu, Philippines....

, Elda

Elda

Elda is a city located in the province of Alicante, Spain. , it has a total population of 55,618 inhabitants, ranking as the 7th most populous city in the province. Elda joins together with the town of Petrer to form a conurbation with over 85,000 inhabitants...

, Benidorm

Benidorm

Benidorm is a coastal town and municipality located in the comarca of Marina Baixa, in the province of Alicante, Valencian community, Spain, by the Western Mediterranean....

and Orihuela

Orihuela

Orihuela is a city and municipality located at the feet of the Sierra de Orihuela mountains in the province of Alicante, Spain. The city of Orihuela had a population of 32,472 inhabitants in the beginning of 2006...

all with between 40,000 and 50,000 voters out of the total electorate of just over 1,170,000.

Boundaries and electoral system

Under Article 68 of the Spanish constitution
the boundaries must be the same as the province of Alicante

Alicante (province)

Alicante or Alacant is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is bordered by the provinces of Murcia on the southwest, Albacete on the west, Valencia on the north, and the Mediterranean Sea on the east...

and under Article 140 this can only be altered with the approval of congress. Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage

Universal suffrage

Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...

in a secret ballot

Secret ballot

The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...

. The electoral system used is closed list

Closed list

Closed list describes the variant of party-list proportional representation where voters can only vote for political parties as a whole and thus have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected...

proportional representation

Proportional representation

Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

with seats allocated using the D'Hondt method

D'Hondt method

The d'Hondt method is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. The method described is named after Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt who described it in 1878...

. Only lists which poll 3% or more of all valid votes cast, including votes "en blanco" i.e. for "none of the above" can be considered for seats. Under article 12 of the constitution, the minimum voting age is 18.

Eligibility

Article 67.3 of the Spanish Constitution prohibits dual membership of the Cortes and regional assemblies, meaning that candidates must resign from Regional Assemblies if elected. Article 70 also makes active judges, magistrates, public defenders, serving military personnel, active police officers and members of constitutional and electoral tribunals ineligible.

Number of members

In the general elections of 1977

Spanish general election, 1977

, 1979

Spanish general election, 1979

General elections were held in Spain on 1 March 1979.-References:* *...

and 1982

Spanish general election, 1982

General elections were held in Spain on 28 October 1982.PSOE and PSC presented two different lists of candidates: with the PSOE contesting most of Spain and the PSC only standing in Catalonia...

Alicante returned nine members. That figure was increased to ten members for the 1986 election

Spanish general election, 1986

General elections were held in Spain on 23 June 1986. In this election, the Communist Party of Spain merged with other minor left parties to form the coalition Izquierda Unida; in Catalonia they ran as the Catalan Left Union. Similarly, the People's Alliance merged with two other conservative...

and it gained an eleventh seat for the 1996 election

Spanish general election, 1996

General elections were held in Spain on March 3, 1996. The Prime Minister Felipe González of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party lost the elections to Partido Popular and their leader José María Aznar....

. It has elected twelve members from the 2008 election onwards.

Under Spanish electoral law, all provinces are entitled to a minimum of 2 seats with a remaining 248 seats apportioned according to population. These laws are laid out in detail in the 1985 electoral law. (Ley Orgánica del Régimen Electoral General) The practical effect of this law has been to overrepresent smaller provinces at the expense of larger provinces.

In 2004 Spain had 34,571,831 voters giving an average of 98,777 voters per deputy. In Alicante the ratio was slightly above that at 104,976.

Summary of seats won 1977-2008

	1977	1979	1982	1986	1989	1993	1996	2000	2004	2008
Seats	9	9	9	10	10	10	11	11	11	12
Democratic Centre Union (UCD)	4	4
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in... (PSOE)	4	4	6	6	5	4	5	4	5	5
United Left United Left (Spain) The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain... (IU)	1	1			1	1	1
People's Party People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship... (PP)			3	3	3	5	5	7	6	7
Democratic and Social Centre (CDS)				1	1

Seats shown for the People's Party include seats won by their predecessors, the Popular Alliance and the Popular Coalition before 1989 including those won as part of an electoral alliance with the Valencian Union (UV) in 1982. Seats shown for United Left include seats won by the Communist Party of Spain before 1986.

Vote share summary by party 1977-2008

	1977	1979	1982	1986	1989	1993	1996	2000	2004	2008
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in... (PSOE)	38.8	39.4	54.1	49.3	43.8	40.0	40.1	34.8	42.1	41.1
Democratic Centre Union (UCD)	35.9	37.5	7.2
United Left United Left (Spain) The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain... (IU)	9.2	11.2	4.1	4.9	9.0	10.3	10.6	5.3	3.9	2.3
People's Party People's Party (Spain) The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship... (PP)	6.5	5.2	29.0	29.5	29.4	43.5	45.7	54.3	48.9	52.4
Democratic and Social Centre (CDS)			2.6	9.6	10.0	1.9	0.2	0.1	0.2

2008 General Election

In terms of percentage vote increase, Alicante was one of the PP’s ten best performances. This resulted in the party gaining the additional seat which the province had been granted for the election.

At municipal level, Alicante, Elche and Benidorm produced results very close to the average. However PP had their lead in Elda cut to two percent. Alcoy also went against the provincial trend, with PSOE increasing their lead over the PP to eight percent.

Summary of the 9 March 2008 Congress of Deputies election results in Alicante.
|-
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left valign=top|Parties and alliances
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Votes
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|%
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Seats
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=right|Members elected
|-
|align=left|People's Party

People's Party (Spain)

The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

United Left (Spain)

The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain...

|align="right" |21,087
|align="right" |2.26
|align="right" |0
|align="left" |
|-
|align=left|Others
|align="right" |31,704
|align="right" |3.40
|align="right" |0
|align="right" |
|-
|}

Source:

2004 General Election

While Alicante and Elda produced results very close to the average, PP had a narrower lead in Elche and Benidorm. PSOE led PP by five percent in Alcoy.

Summary of the 14 March 2004 Congress of Deputies election results

Spanish legislative election, 2004

Legislative elections were held in Spain on 14 March 2004. At stake were all 350 seats in the lower house of the Cortes Generales, the Congress of Deputies, and 208 seats in upper house, the Senate. The governing People's Party was led into the campaign by Mariano Rajoy, successor to outgoing...

People's Party (Spain)

Federico Trillo

Federico Trillo-Figueroa Martínez-Conde is a Spanish politician belonging to the People's Party. His father, also named Federico Trillo, was a politician during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco....

, Miguel Campoy, María Ferrando, Macarena Montesinos, Francisco Murcia, María Seller
|-
|align=left|Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

United Left (Spain)

|align="right" |34,774
|align="right" |3.91
|align="right" |0
|align="left" |
|-
|align=left|Others
|align="right" |32,963
|align="right" |3.70
|align="right" |0
|align="right" |
|-
|}

2000 General Election

People's Party (Spain)

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Leire Pajín

Leire Pajín Iraola is a Spanish socialist politician and the current Minister of Health, Equality and Social Policy in the cabinet led by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero....

|-
|align=left| United Left

United Left (Spain)

|align="right" |42,998
|align="right" |5.34
|align="right" |0
|align="left" |
|-
|align=left|Others
|align="right" |35,826
|align="right" |4.40
|align="right" |0
|align="right" |
|-
|}

External links

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