2021 Spanish general election
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All 366 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 10 seats in the Federal Senate 184 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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File:Congress of Deputies parliamentary map.svg Map of the parliamentary districts of the Congress of Deputies. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2021 Spanish general election was held on October 7, 2021. Originally scheduled for January 2021, the election was rescheduled three separate times by the Congress of Deputies due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Despite having a controversial tenure, Prime Minister Gabriel Perez secured secured the required majority needed for a second term.
All 366 members of the Congress of Deputies and ten members of the Federal Senate were elected through a mixed first-past-the-post electoral system and open list proportional representation system. The 2021 general election was originally scheduled to occur sometime in January, however because of the national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and constitutional loopholes, the government of Gabriel Perez was able to push back the election two separate times, first to March 6 and then to July 7, which created intense political controversy and social unrest in various parts of Spain. A third attempt to push elections back, this time to December 30, was rejected by the Constitutional Court, who ordered the election to occur in October.
The general election campaign focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, the aftermath of the 2017 Canary Islands independence crisis, and the constitutional powers of the central government. On election night, the Democratic Socialists narrowly retained their majority in the Congress of Deputies, losing a net total of fifteen seats. The Democratic Union, the leading opposition party, suffered a historical defeat, losing a net total of 31 seats primarily to the Spanish National Union, which itself is considered the biggest winner of the election, doubling its share of seats in the congress. Along with the National Union, the far-left Leftwards!, and the seperatist Catalan People's Party and Canary National Party also won seats. In the aftermath of the election, widespread protests and riots occurred across Spain.