Barcelona City Council election, 1983

Barcelona City Council election, 1983

8 May 1983

All 43 seats in the Barcelona City Council 22 seats needed for a majority Registered 1,359,589 8.6% Turnout 897,427 (66.0%) 12.6 pp   First party Second party Third party   Leader Pasqual Maragall Ramon Trias Alexandre Pedrós Party PSC CiU CP Leader since 2 December 1982 1983 1983 Last election 16 seats, 33.9% 8 seats, 18.2% 0 seats, 3.0%[lower-alpha 1] Seats won 21 13 6 Seat change 5 5 6 Popular vote 412,292 247,212 116,308 Percentage 45.9% 27.5% 13.0% Swing 12.0 pp 9.3 pp 10.0 pp

Mayor before election Pasqual Maragall PSC Elected Mayor Pasqual Maragall PSC

The 1983 Barcelona City Council election was held on Sunday, 8 May 1983, to elect the 2nd Barcelona City Council, the unicameral local legislature of the municipality of Barcelona. At stake were all 43 seats in the City Council, determining the Mayor of Barcelona.

Electoral system

The number of seats in the Barcelona City Council was determined by the population count. According to the municipal electoral law, the population-seat relationship on each municipality was to be established on the following scale:

Inhabitants	Seats
<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

Additionally, for populations greater than 100,000, 1 seat was to be added per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction, according to the most updated census data, and adding 1 more seat if the resulting seat count gives an even number. As the updated population census for the 1983 election was 1,752,627, the Barcelona City Council size was set to 43 seats.

All City Council members were elected in a single multi-member district, consisting of the Barcelona municipality, using the D'Hondt method and a closed-list proportional representation system. Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. Only lists polling above 5% of valid votes in all of the municipality (which include blank ballots—for none of the above) were entitled to enter the seat distribution.

The Spanish municipal electoral law established a clause stating that, if no candidate was to gather an absolute majority of votes to be elected as mayor of a municipality, the candidate of the most-voted party would be automatically elected to the post.^[1]

Results

← Summary of the 8 May 1983 Barcelona City Council election results →

Party		Vote			Seats
		Votes	%	±pp	Won	+/−
	Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC-PSOE)	412,292	45.94	12.05	21	5
	Convergence and Union (CiU)	247,212	27.55	9.32	13	5
	People's Coalition (AP-PDP-UL)	116,308	12.96	10.00	6	6
	Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC)	62,430	6.96	12.09	3	6
	Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)	34,772	3.87	1.44	0	2
	Party of the Communists of Catalonia (PCC)	9,671	1.08	0.31	0	±0
	Democratic and Social Centre (CDS)	8,463	0.94	New	0	±0
	Workers' Socialist Party (PST)	2,733	0.30	New	0	±0
	Independents (INDEP)	1,388	0.15	New	0	±0
	Spanish Falange (FE)	1,197	0.13	New	0	±0
	Revolutionary Workers' Party of Spain (PORE)	881	0.10	New	0	±0
	Conservatives of Catalonia (CC)	80	0.01	New	0	±0
	Centrists of Catalonia (CC-UCD)	N/A	N/A	16.67	0	8
	Blank ballots	0	0.00	±0.00
Total		897,427	100.00		43	±0
Valid votes		897,427	100.00	0.14
Invalid votes		0	0.00	0.14
Votes cast / turnout		897,427	66.01	12.57
Abstentions		462,162	33.99	12.57
Registered voters		1,359,589
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Vote share
PSC-PSOE			45.94%
CiU			27.55%
AP-PDP-UL			12.96%
PSUC			6.96%
ERC			3.87%
PCC			1.08%
Others			1.64%
Blank ballots			0.00%

City council seats
PSC-PSOE			48.84%
CiU			30.23%
AP-PDP-UL			13.95%
PSUC			6.98%

Notes

1. Compared to the Democratic Coalition results in the 1979 election.

References

1. "Law 39/1978, of 17 July, of local elections.".