Cantabrian parliamentary election, 1991

Cantabrian parliamentary election, 1991

26 May 1991

All 39 seats in the Regional Assembly of Cantabria 20 seats needed for a majority Opinion polls Registered 412,412 4.4% Turnout 298,348 (72.3%) 4.0 pp   First party Second party Third party   Leader Jaime Blanco Juan Hormaechea José Luis Vallines Party PSOE UPCA PP Leader since 1977 23 January 1991 1990 Last election 13 seats, 29.6% Did not contest 18 seats, 43.7%[lower-alpha 1] Seats won 16 15 6 Seat change 3 15 12 Popular vote 102,958 99,194 42,714 Percentage 34.8% 33.5% 14.4% Swing 5.2 pp New party 29.3 pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Miguel Ángel Revilla Ángel Agudo Manuel Garrido Party PRC IU CDS Leader since 1983 1983 1987 Last election 5 seats, 12.9% 0 seats, 3.6% 3 seats, 6.6% Seats won 2 0 0 Seat change 3 ±0 3 Popular vote 18,789 13,023 7,926 Percentage 6.4% 4.4% 2.7% Swing 6.5 pp 0.8 pp 3.9 pp

President before election Jaime Blanco PSOE Elected President Juan Hormaechea UPCA

The 1991 Cantabrian parliamentary election was held on Sunday, 26 May 1991, to elect the 3rd Parliament of Cantabria (known from 1983 to 1998 as Regional Assembly of Cantabria), the regional legislature of the Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria. At stake were all 39 seats in the Assembly, determining the President of Cantabria.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) under incumbent President Jaime Blanco went on to win its first and only regional election in Cantabria. Juan Hormaechea's Union for the Progress of Cantabria (UPCA), a split from the People's Party (PP), won 15 seats and 33% of the vote, with the PP vote collapsing to 6 seats and 14% of the vote as a result. The Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC) suffered from the UPCA's surge and returned to its 1983 results, while the Democratic and Social Centre did not reach the required 5% threshold and was expelled from parliament.

Juan Hormaechea managed to get re-elected as regional President thanks to a UPCA-PP agreement. He had been forced to resign in late 1990, after a no-confidence motion was passed against him by an alliance of PSOE, PP, PRC and CDS.

Electoral system

The number of seats in the Regional Assembly of Cantabria was set to a fixed-number of 39. All Assembly members were elected in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Community's territory (the province of Cantabria), using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system.

Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the community (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) were entitled to enter the seat distribution.^[1]

Background

The 1987 election had seen AP candidate Juan Hormaechea win the election with 19 out of 39 seats, 1 short for the absolute majority. Hormaechea, who had been Mayor of Santander between 1974 and 1987 and stood as an independent within AP, was elected as President of Cantabria thanks to the abstention vote of the CDS two deputies.^[2]

However, from the beginning Hormaechea's tenure as regional President was controversial. Shortly after being elected, in August 1987, Hormaechea announced "difficulties" in forming a regional government, claiming pressures from AP to force him to name prominent party members as regional ministers,^[3] accusing AP of "seeking to create wealth for themselves instead of wanting to serve the region" and threatening to resign from his office.^[4][5] The government crisis was temporarily solved with the naming of three independents and four AP members as regional ministers.^[6]

Hormaechea would star another incidents throughout the legislature, including insults to other parties' deputies,^[7] accusations to the Assembly Speaker Eduardo Obregón (PSOE) of official misconduct^[8] (which resulted in a legal complaint against Hormaechea),^[9] as well as accusations from the three opposition parties (PSOE, PRC and CDS) of a continued disregard for the regional chamber.^[10] Hormaechea was also accused of political misconduct, such as extortioning other deputies in exchange of their votes,^[11] bribing MPs from other parties,^[12] as well as influence peddling favoring family members^[13] and physically attacking a PSOE senator.^[14]

Further, in late 1989, a controversy arose after Hormaechea declared he was not supporting the People's Party, successor party to AP, for that year's general election.^[15] From that point, the deteriorating relationship between the PP and Hormaechea as a result of the latter's personalism and marginalization of the party's structure in the region triggered a political crisis.^[16][17] Hormaechea's insults to party leaders in late 1990^[18] motivated the PP's decision not to choose him as candidate for the incoming 1991 election,^[19] as well as the party presenting a motion of censure on Hormaechea to remove him from the regional government,^[20] with the support from the PSOE, PRC and CDS, electing PSOE leader Jaime Blanco as the head of a coalition administration for the remainder of the legislature.^[21] This caused a split within the regional PP, with 12 deputies supporting Hormaechea and 7 supporting the no-confidence motion against him. Hormaechea's grouping went on to form a separate party, the Union for the Progress of Cantabria (UPCA), to stand for the 1991 election.^[22]

Election campaign

The unveiling of irregularities within the finances of Hormaechea's government conducted by Blanco's coalition government marked the electoral campaign into the 1991 election. Hormaechea's management of the regional budget had left a public debt worth of 80,000 million pesetas,^[23] while auditors discovered spenditures during the 1987-1990 period that were difficult to justify,^[24] with evidence pointing to embezzlement during Hormaechea's tenure.^[25]

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) tried to benefit from the split in the centre-right vote, with former Deputy Prime Minister Alfonso Guerra asking conservative voters to vote the PSOE "for this time", reminding the chaotic political situation of the community as a result of the infighting between former President Juan Hormaechea and the People's Party leadership.^[26]

Opinion polls

Vote

Poll results are listed in the table below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded. The lead column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the two parties with the highest figures. Poll results use the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. However, if such date is unknown, the date of publication will be given instead.

Date	Polling Firm/Source	PP	PSOE	PRC	CDS	IU	UPCA	Oth.	Lead
26 May 1991	Regional Election	14.4	34.8	6.4	2.7	4.4	33.5	3.8	1.3
Exit polls
1991
10 Nov	Gabes	8.1	33.2	6.1			46.9	5.7	13.7
2 Oct	Demoscopia	9.0	27.0	8.0			49.5	6.5	22.5
17 Mar	Gabes	48.3	32.0					19.7	16.3
1990
29 Oct 1989	General Election	38.4	40.1	N/A	9.7	6.4		5.4	1.7
15 Jun 1989	EP Election	32.0	40.3	N/A	7.0	4.2		16.5	8.3
1989
1988
10 Jun 1987	Regional Election	41.4	29.6	12.9	6.6	3.6		5.9	11.8

Seat projections

Opinion polls showing seat projections are displayed in the table below. The highest seat figures in each polling survey have their background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded. 20 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Regional Assembly of Cantabria.

20 seats needed for majority

Date	Polling Firm/Source	PP	PSOE	PRC	CDS	IU	UPCA	Others
26 May 1991	Regional Election	6	16	2	0	0	15	0
Exit polls
4–7 May	Demoscopia	7−8	15−16	3−4	0−2	0−2	10−12	0
1991
10 Nov	Gabes	3	14	2	0	0	20	0
2 Oct	Demoscopia	3	11	3	0	0	22	0
1990
29 Oct 1989	General Election	(16)	(17)	(0)	(4)	(2)		(0)
15 Jun 1989	EP Election	(16)	(20)	(0)	(3)	(0)		(0)
1989
1988
10 Jun 1987	Regional Election	18	13	5	2	0		0

Results

← Summary of the 26 May 1991 Cantabrian Regional Assembly election results →

Party		Vote			Seats
		Votes	%	±pp	Won	+/−
	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)	102,958	34.81	5.26	16	3
	Union for the Progress of Cantabria (UPCA)	99,194	33.53	New	15	15
	People's Party (PP)[lower-alpha 1]	42,714	14.44	29.27	6	12
	Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC)	18,789	6.35	6.51	2	3
	United Left (IU)	13,023	4.40	0.75	0	±0
	Democratic and Social Centre (CDS)	7,926	2.68	3.91	0	3
	The Greens (LV)	2,045	0.69	New	0	±0
	Neighborhood Association of Cantabria (AVC)	1,445	0.49	New	0	±0
	Ecologist-Humanist List (LE-H)	1,184	0.40	0.11	0	±0
	Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE)	896	0.30	New	0	±0
	Nationalist Party of Cantabria (PNC)	623	0.21	New	0	±0
	Blank ballots	5,009	1.69	0.57
Total		295,806	100.00		39	±0
Valid votes		295,806	99.15	0.52
Invalid votes		2,542	0.85	0.52
Votes cast / turnout		298,348	72.34	3.93
Abstentions		114,064	27.66	3.93
Registered voters		412,412
Source: Argos Information Portal

Vote share
PSOE			34.81%
UPCA			33.53%
PP			14.44%
PRC			6.35%
IU			4.40%
CDS			2.68%
Others			2.09%
Blank ballots			1.69%

Parliamentary seats
PSOE			41.03%
UPCA			38.46%
PP			15.38%
PRC			5.13%

Post-election

Investiture voting

2 July 1991 Investiture voting for Juan Hormaechea (UPCA) Absolute majority: 20/39
Vote	Parties	Votes
Yes	UPCA (15), PP (6)	21 / 39
No	PSOE (16), PRC (2)	18 / 39
Abstentions		0 / 39
Source: El País

Notes

1. People's Party results are compared to the People's Alliance and People's Democratic Party totals in the 1987 election.

References

1. "Law 5/1987, of 27 March, of elections to the Parliament of Cantabria".
2. "Elected the autonomic presidents of La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-07-25.
3. "AP Cantabria denies having "personal desires" to form a government" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-08-08.
4. "Hormaechea criticizes his parliamentary group and threatens to resign" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-08-07.
5. "The crisis preventing Hormaechea from forming a government in Cantabria persists" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-08-11.
6. "Three independents and four AP members, in the new Cantabrian government" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-08-12.
7. "Hormaechea compares the fact of his suspension as deputy with the practice of the old dictatorships" (in Spanish). El País. 1988-03-11.
8. "Juan Hormaechea will be expelled from the Cantabrian Parliament if he causes further incidents" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-11-26.
9. "Accepted the complaint of the Speaker of the Cantabrian Parliament against Hormaechea" (in Spanish). El País. 1988-06-24.
10. "The Regional Assembly reprobates the Cantabrian president, Juan Hormaechea" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-12-17.
11. "A Cantabrian deputy accuses Hormaechea of extorting him to get his vote" (in Spanish). El País. 1987-12-21.
12. "Hormaechea calls "insane" the allegations of bribery in Cantabria" (in Spanish). El País. 1989-05-31.
13. "Opposition accuses Hormaechea of favoring a familiar with the qualification of a solar" (in Spanish). El País. 1989-11-12.
14. "Physical confrontation between the President of Cantabria and a PSOE senator" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-05-12.
15. "Tocino recommends Hormaechea to shut up" (in Spanish). El País. 1989-11-01.
16. "The PP Cantabrian government plans a no-confidence motion against its president" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-03-17.
17. "The PP discards a motion of censure against the President of Cantabria" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-03-20.
18. "Hormaechea insults Fraga, Tocino and Aznar and sings, arm-raised 'Snowy Mountains', in a 'pub' of Santander" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-11-03.
19. "Hormaechea will not be People's Party candidate for President of Cantabria" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-11-04.
20. "Aznar threatens to dissolve the People's Party of Cantabria if it does not support the no-confidence motion against Hormaechea" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-11-06.
21. "Socialist Jaime Blanco, new President of Cantabria with support from the People's Party" (in Spanish). El País. 1990-12-06.
22. "Former President Hormaechea presents his new party in a conciliatory tone" (in Spanish). El País. 1991-01-29.
23. "A hole under the carpet" (in Spanish). El País. 1991-01-31.
24. "Auditors discover Hormaechea's spenditures difficult to justify" (in Spanish). El País. 1991-01-21.
25. "Very serious irregularities in Hormaechea's management" (in Spanish). El País. 1991-02-22.
26. "Alfonso Guerra calls in Cantabria for conservatives to vote the PSOE "for this time"" (in Spanish). El País. 1991-05-17.