The 2023 Melilla Assembly election was held on Sunday, 28 May 2023, to elect the 8th Assembly of the autonomous city of Melilla. All 25 seats in the Assembly were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with regional elections in twelve autonomous communities and local elections all throughout Spain.
The election campaign was shook by a vote-buying scandal, after an unusual increase of the postal voting was detected. As a result, some parties, such as Coalition for Melilla (CpM), The Greens–Green Group (LV–GV) and Vox asked the Central Electoral Commission (JEC) to suspend the election and to cancel postal votes. On 23 May, five days before the election, ten individuals were arrested for their involvement in an attempted large-scale vote-buying fraud, including the son-in-law of Mustafa Aberchán, the leader of CpM; and Mohamed Ahmed Al-lal, third in the CpM's list and at the time regional minister in the government of Melilla. The latter was dismissed by the Mayor-President of Melilla Eduardo de Castro the following day. Moreover, two individuals linked to the People's Party (PP) were also among the arrested.
The election resulted in a dramatic rise for the PP vote, which under Juan José Imbroda secured an absolute majority of seats that allowed them to recover the regional government, and in the collapse of the CpM support, which fell from 30.6% to 18.8%. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) also lost ground, whereas Vox and local party Somos Melilla (SML) saw increases in support, with the latter entering the Assembly for the first time.
Electoral system.
The Assembly of Melilla was the top-tier administrative and governing body of the autonomous city of Melilla. Voting for the Assembly was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over eighteen, registered and residing in the municipality of Melilla and in full enjoyment of their political rights, as well as resident non-national European citizens and those whose country of origin allowed Spanish nationals to vote in their own elections by virtue of a treaty.
The 25 members of the Assembly of Melilla were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with a threshold of five percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied.
The Mayor-President was indirectly elected by the plenary assembly. A legal clause required that mayoral candidates earned the vote of an absolute majority of councillors, or else the candidate of the most-voted party in the assembly was to be automatically appointed to the post. In the event of a tie, the appointee would be determined by lot.
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 will likely contest the election:
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; 13 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Assembly of Melilla.
References.
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