The 2020 Basque regional election was held on Sunday, 12 July 2020, to elect the 12th Parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community. All 75 seats in the Parliament were up for election. The election was initially scheduled for 5 April 2020 but was postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was held simultaneously with a regional election in Galicia.
On 4 February 2020, Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu had discussed holding a snap election within a cabinet meeting, fulfilling a legal requirement previous to any election call and sparking speculation that a regional election was imminent. Six days later, on 10 February, Urkullu confirmed the election for 5 April, seeking to distance himself from the convoluted political landscape in Catalonia after a 2020 election in the region was announced by Catalan president Quim Torra. The announcement of the Basque election prompted Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo to trigger a snap election in Galicia as well. However, on 16 March it was announced that the vote would be postponed for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, shortly after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's declaration of a nationwide lockdown in the country starting on the previous day.
Urkullu's Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) maintained its status as the largest party in the Basque Parliament with its best result since 1984, which coupled to an increase in support of one seat for the centre-left Socialist Party of the Basque Country–Basque Country Left (PSE-EE)—its coalition partner during the previous legislature—allowed Urkullu to establish a majority coalition government. The left-wing regional nationalist EH Bildu topped its best historical result, benefitting from the collapse of the United We Can–United Left (Elkarrekin Podemos) alliance, which lost nearly half its support. The PP+Cs alliance compromising both the People's Party (PP) and Citizens (Cs) lost roughly half of the seats won by the PP in the 2016 election, although Cs entered the regional parliament for the first time with 2 seats whereas the PP was allocated the alliance's remaining 4. The far-right Spanish unionist Vox entered the Parliament for the first time with one seat. Equo was not able to secure parliamentary representation after having won one seat as a member of the Elkarrekin Podemos alliance in 2016.
Overview.
Electoral system.
The Basque Parliament was the devolved, unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of the Basque Country, having legislative power in regional matters as defined by the Spanish Constitution and the Basque Statute of Autonomy, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a lehendakari. Voting for the Parliament was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in the Basque Country and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Additionally, Basques abroad were required to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote ().
The 75 members of the Basque Parliament were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, with each being allocated a fixed number of 25 seats in order to provide for an equal parliamentary representation of the three provinces, as required under the regional statute of autonomy.
Election date.
The term of the Basque Parliament expired four years after the date of its previous election, unless it was dissolved earlier. The election decree was required to be issued no later than the twenty-fifth day prior to the date of expiry of parliament and published on the following day in the Official Gazette of the Basque Country (BOPV), with election day taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication. The previous election was held on 25 September 2016, which meant that the legislature's term would have expired on 25 September 2020. The election decree was required to be published in the BOPV no later than 1 September 2020, with the election taking place on the fifty-fourth day from publication, setting the latest possible election date for the Parliament on Sunday, 25 October 2020.
The lehendakari had the prerogative to dissolve the Basque Parliament at any given time and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process. In the event of an investiture process failing to elect a lehendakari within a sixty-day period from the Parliament re-assembly, the Parliament was to be dissolved and a fresh election called.
On 4 February 2020, it was revealed that Iñigo Urkullu was considering holding a snap election within a short timeframe and that he had fulfilled legal requirements for it by raising such hypothesis within a cabinet meeting, with 5 April being regarded as the most likely date. The decision of Catalan president Quim Torra on 29 January to announce a snap Catalan regional election to be held at some point throughout 2020 was said to have raised concerns within Urkullu's government, as the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) sought to prevent the next Basque regional election from being held simultaneously to prevent any interference from the Catalan political debate into the Basque campaign.
Asked in a plenary session of parliament on 7 February on whether he would be dissolving the chamber within the following days, Urkullu refused to either explicitly confirm or reject such hypothesis, but asked opposition parties for a commitment to approve as many legislation as possible "now and in the future". Sources within the Basque government pointed out that, for an election to be held on 5 April, the dissolution decree would have to be published in the BOPV on Tuesday, 11 February, and that if a snap election was to be eventually called the announcement of it happening could be delayed up to that day. Finally, Urkullu confirmed on 10 February the election date for 5 April, with the subsequent dissolution of parliament to be made official on the next day.
The Basque Parliament was officially dissolved on 11 February 2020 after the publication of the dissolution decree in the BOPV. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the election's original date was suspended on 16 March, with it being rescheduled for 12 July 2020 on 18 May after the easing of virus spreading conditions and a reduction in the infection rate, resulting in the lockdown established by the state of alarm lasting from 15 March to 21 June.
Parliamentary composition.
The table below shows the composition of the parliamentary groups in the chamber at the time of dissolution.
Parties and candidates.
The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, coalitions and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form a coalition ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within ten days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one percent of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.
Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
In August 2018, Pilar Zabala, the leader of Elkarrekin Podemos, announced that she would not seek reelection and would leave politics by the end of the legislature. Ahead of the election, Equo was excluded from the coalition after the party had broken up with the Unidas Podemos nationwide alliance to join Más País in the lead up to the November 2019 Spanish general election.
Alfonso Alonso had been initially scheduled to repeat as the leading candidate for the People's Party (PP) in the regional election, having been confirmed for the post on 10 February 2020. However, the negotiation of a coalition with Citizens (Cs) which the Basque PP received with heavy criticism, amid claims of having been overruled and swept aside by the party's national leadership in the coalition talks, triggered an internal clash which led national PP leader Pablo Casado to force Alonso's removal as candidate on 23 February and propose Carlos Iturgaiz for the post instead.
Timetable.
The key dates are listed below (all times are CET):
Opinion polls.
The tables below list opinion polling results in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first and using the dates when the survey fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. Where the fieldwork dates are unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed with its background shaded in the leading party's colour. If a tie ensues, this is applied to the figures with the highest percentages. The "Lead" column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the parties with the highest percentages in a poll.
Voting intention estimates.
The table below lists weighted voting intention estimates. Refusals are generally excluded from the party vote percentages, while question wording and the treatment of "don't know" responses and those not intending to vote may vary between polling organisations. When available, seat projections determined by the polling organisations are displayed below (or in place of) the percentages in a smaller font; 38 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Basque Parliament.
Voting preferences.
The table below lists raw, unweighted voting preferences.
Victory preferences.
The table below lists opinion polling on the victory preferences for each party in the event of a regional election taking place.
Victory likelihood.
The table below lists opinion polling on the perceived likelihood of victory for each party in the event of a regional election taking place.
Preferred Lehendakari.
The table below lists opinion polling on leader preferences to become lehendakari.
Voter turnout.
The table below shows registered vote turnout on election day without including voters from the Census of Absent-Residents (CERA).
References.
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