President of Madrid

The President of Madrid is the highest-ranking officer of the Autonomous Community of Madrid and the head of the Executive Branch. The office is currently held by Esperanza Aguirre of the People's Party.

Origins and election

In the process of the democracy restoration in Spain between 1975–1978, the nationalist and regionalist parties pressed to grant home rule to parts of Spain. Finally, the Constitution stated that any province or group of provinces could form an autonomous community and thus be granted partial home rule. The Autonomous Community of Madrid (Spanish "Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid") was created in 1982, and from then regional elections are held every 4 years.

Unlike those of the US states, the citizens of the Autonomous Communities of Spain don't elect a person for presidency of their community: they elect the regional legislature, and that legislature elects the President: the executive power emanates from the people through the legislative power, instead of coming directly from the people. This system usually assures the government more stability because a candidate needs a majority (that is supposed to be loyal to him/her during the whole term) to be elected, but has a significant drawback: a party can win the election (be the top-voted party) but might not be entitled to form the government (have a majority). This situation, though infrequent in general elections, often happens in local/regional legislatures throughout Spain: the most usual coalition is between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the United Left (IU).

In Madrid, such a coalition was formed in the 2nd term, in which then-president Joaquín Leguina from the PSOE won the election without a majorityIn fact, even the PSOE-IU coalition was in the minority (47 seats) against the centre-right parties PP and CDS (49), which could not reach an agreement to rule. Once they did, a situation similar to the 6th term scandal arose, depriving those parties of the majority and allowing President Leguina to continue his minority government.] , once more in the 3rd term, allowing him to remain in office even after having lost the election to the People's Party (PP), and once more in the 6th term, by the PSOE candidate Rafael Simancas. However, this last coalition ultimately failed due to the dissidence of two PSOE Assembly Members, which denounced the pact with IU as being too wide and unrepresentative of the people's will due to the planned power balance. See the 6th term scandal.

List of Presidents of the Autonomous Community of Madrid

The 6th term scandal

In the May 2003 election, the ruling People's Party switched leadership: incumbent Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón aimed for the office of Mayor of Madrid, which he successfully obtained with a safe majority, while the regional list was headed by Senator and ex-Minister Esperanza Aguirre. The election was strongly contested and in the end the PP won but fell some 25,000 votes short of a majority, with 55 out of 111 seats. The other two forces in the newly-elected Assembly, the PSOE (47 seats) and IU (9), both leaning left, started negotiations and in the end agreed a pact, which included the election of a favorable President of the Assembly (i.e. Speaker) and Bureau as its first point. It also included the cession of big chunks of budgetary control to IU, which sparked criticism from some sectors within the PSOE because the balance of power, while still favorable to the PSOE, was way out of proportion with the votes and seats each party in the coalition had received. However, PSOE leader Rafael Simancas dismissed them and said it was "time for a government of the left in Madrid".

However, when the opening session of the new legislature began and the temporary president] called for the election of the Speaker to start, concern spread through the PSOE ranks: two of their AMsAssembly Member] were missing, leaving the left-wing coalition with 54 seats against the 55 of the PP. On demand of the PSOE leader, the election was delayed for 15 minutes but finally the PP called for the closing of the gatesLegislature members are not forced to attend sessions and they cannot be summoned through a Call of the house. However, when a vote is about to start, a bell rings throughout the building and the gates are closed until it ends.] . The end result was the election of the PP AM Concepción Dancausa as Speaker and a PP-favorable Bureau (4 members against 2 PSOE and 1 IU).

For some hours, the two "absent" AMs, Eduardo Tamayo and María Teresa Sáez were the most sought-after people in Madrid. Suddenly, they granted a TV interview in which they explained their reasons for not showing up: mainly, they felt the pact with IU was not fair to the voters, who had chosen the PSOE by a proportion of five to one. Also, they thought their concerns were too quickly dismissed when they were raised in the internal party apparatus, which they criticised as being too willing to reach power no matter what the cost. In response, PSOE leader Rafael Simancas, who denied such concerns were actually voiced in the party meetings about the pact, opened them an expedient in which he requested the immediate removal of the two "dissidents" from the party. He then fired a full round towards the PP, which he accused of bribing the two AMs to prevent a left-wing government in Madrid and "using s to change the election results". The rival party quickly denied all accusations and sued the PSOE for calumnies. The two parties immediately engaged in a political and media dogfight the whole summer, while the third party in dispute, IU, only mildly criticized the PP and distanced itself from the confrontation.

The situation in the Assembly was no better, as the two PSOE AMs continued not to attend: even though the PP held a theoretical majority with 55 seats out of 109 and could push some decisions through, neither it nor the rival coalition could command the majority of 56 seats required for the election of the President of Madrid. However, there were increasing rumors that the PP planned to request an investiture vote for its candidate Esperanza Aguirre, who called for the dissolution of the Assembly and fresh elections. The law governing the election of the regional President requires a majority in the first vote, but in a second poll only a plurality of "yes" votes are needed, which the left-wing coalition would not be able to counter since it only held 54 seats. Furthermore, the PP requested the legal services of the House to investigate whether the "majority" would actually be defined to be 55 seats, since the two PSOE AMs had never taken possession of their seats.

In response, the two AMs notified the Speaker they would finally enter the Assembly at its next meeting, which created an even more awkward situation: there was no viable majority, since they had been expelled from the PSOE, which kept denouncing them as "traitors". The Assembly Speaker, PP AM Concepción Dancausa announced that if no party could command the required majority, she would be forced to call for new elections. Then, PSOE leader Rafael Simancas, who had requested a parliamentary investigation of the events, requested a vote for his investiture to be scheduled. He claimed not to intend to be elected, not wanting to accept the two AMs' votes, whose support had been offered should the pact with IU be modified. The main reason alleged for this "fake" investiture session was to forcefully push back the dissolution of the Assembly by at least the two months required by the law after one such vote was held.

During the summer, the parliamentary committee was formed and put to work investigating the causes of the "betrayal". The left-wing coalition was cornered in the choice of committee members, since there was no way they could have a majority: either they followed the Assembly rules and allotted at least a member to each parliamentary group (thus again leaving the majority in the hands of Tamayo and Sáez) or the House denied the "mixed group" of the two "fled" AMs representation in the committee on the grounds that they were the actual object of investigation (thus leaving the rival PP in the majority). The latter choice was finally implementedActually, the committee had 16 members: 8 PP, 6 PSOE and 2 IU. However, the committee chairman (from the PP) held a casting vote, thus effectively giving that party the majority.] and, after a month of 12-hour sessions in which many prominent politicians and businessmen from both sides were summoned and vast amounts of vitriol were served by both mainstream parties, the committee passed a report concluding Tamayo and Sáez were not bribed by PP and placing full blame on the PSOE. The report, however, was defeated in the full House vote, in which the two AMs (who could not then be barred from participating) joined the left-wing coalition in their "no" vote even though they kept defending their innocence.

Fresh elections were held on October 26, 2003, in which the PSOE centered its campaign on the "stolen elections". Tamayo and Sáez created a new political party called New Socialism, gathering about 6,000 votes and no seats. The new result, with a slightly reduced turnout, was a majority for the PP, which ironically gained two seats (up to 57) from the PSOE (down to 45), while IU raised its voter share and fell just short of getting one more seat (but finally repeated its previous result of 9). The scrutiny information from the caretaker government of Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón drew heavy fire from the left, since the first districts reporting were mostly left-wing, with the result that the initial reports (at about 20% of the votes counted) showed the PSOE leading with 52 seats to 49 PP and 10 IU. As more results arrived, the PP slowly recovered, but even at 80% counted the majority was undecided (55-46-10), and it wasn't until 96% of the votes had been counted that the PP achieved its 56th seatThe Madrid Assembly is elected on a single constituency of more than a hundred members, and seats are allocated with the D'Hondt proportional representation method. Thus, seats are not "won" in a one-by-one basis: the data given refers to the moment in which, the PP having won a 56th seat, it became mathematically impossible for the other parties to capture it.] and the majority in the Assembly. About a month later, PP leader Esperanza Aguirre won the investiture vote and was sworn in as the 3rd President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.

References