1979 Madrid City Council election

The 1979 Madrid City Council election, also the 1979 Madrid municipal election, was held on Tuesday, 3 April 1979, to elect the 1st City Council of the municipality of Madrid. All 59 seats in the City Council were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with local elections all throughout Spain.

1979 Madrid City Council election

3 April 1979
All 59 seats in the City Council of Madrid 30 seats needed for a majority
Registered	2,378,941
Turnout	1,569,610 (66.0%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader José Luis Álvarez Enrique Tierno Galván Ramón Tamames Party UCD PSOE PCE Leader since 1979 1979 1979 Seats won 25 25 9 Popular vote 632,329 619,772 230,651 Percentage 40.3% 39.5% 14.7%
Mayor before election Luis María Huete y Morillo UCD Elected Mayor Enrique Tierno Galván PSOE

The Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) emerged as the most voted party, but in a seat tie with the second force, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), at 25 seats. As neither had an absolute majority of seats, it was up to the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) 9 seats to decide which party was to govern in Madrid.

Finally, an agreement between the PSOE and PCE resulted in Enrique Tierno Galván being named as the first democratically elected Mayor of Madrid.

Electoral system

The City Council of Madrid (Spanish: Ayuntamiento de Madrid) was the top-tier administrative and governing body of the municipality of Madrid, composed of the mayor, the government council and the elected plenary assembly. Voting for the local assembly was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in the municipality of Madrid and in full enjoyment of their civil and political rights.

Local councillors were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of five percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each local council. Councillors were allocated to municipal councils based on the following scale:

Population	Councillors
<250	5
251–1,000	7
1,001–2,000	9
2,001–5,000	11
5,001–10,000	13
10,001–20,000	17
20,001–50,000	21
50,001–100,000	25
>100,001	+1 per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction +1 if total is an even number

The mayor 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 eldest one would be elected.

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 fifteen days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one-thousandth of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election—with a compulsory minimum of 500 signatures—disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.

Results

Summary of the 3 April 1979 City Council of Madrid election results →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote			Seats
		Votes	%	±pp	Total	+/−
	Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD)	632,329	40.29	n/a	25	n/a
	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)	619,772	39.49	n/a	25	n/a
	Communist Party of Spain (PCE)	230,651	14.69	n/a	9	n/a
	Workers' Revolutionary Organization (ORT)	37,396	2.38	n/a	0	n/a
	Spanish Phalanx of the CNSO (FE–JONS)	25,038	1.60	n/a	0	n/a
	Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (historical) (PSOEh)	5,317	0.34	n/a	0	n/a
	Communist Unification of Spain (UCE)	5,251	0.33	n/a	0	n/a
	Spanish Communist Workers' Party (PCOE)	5,241	0.33	n/a	0	n/a
	Communist Movement–Organization of Communist Left (MC–OIC)	2,401	0.15	n/a	0	n/a
	Socialist Party (PS)	2,298	0.15	n/a	0	n/a
	Liberal Party (PL)	2,132	0.14	n/a	0	n/a
	Revolutionary Communist League (LCR)	1,784	0.11	n/a	0	n/a
Blank ballots		0	0.00	n/a
Total		1,569,610			59	n/a
Valid votes		1,569,610	100.00	n/a
Invalid votes		0	0.00	n/a
Votes cast / turnout		1,569,610	65.98	n/a
Abstentions		809,331	34.02	n/a
Registered voters		2,378,941
Sources

Popular vote UCD   40.29% PSOE   39.49% PCE   14.69% ORT   2.38% FE–JONS   1.60% Others   1.56% Blank ballots   0.00%

Seats UCD   42.37% PSOE   42.37% PCE   15.25%