List of Presidents of Madrid

In the process of the democracy restoration in Spain between 1975-1978, the nationalist and regionalist parties pressed to grant home rule to parts of Spain. Finally, the Constitution stated that any province or group of provinces could conform an autonomous community and thust be granted partial home rule. The Autonomous Community of Madrid (Spanish Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid) was created in 1982, and from then regional elections are held every 4 years.

Unlike those of the US states, the citizens of the Autonomous Communities of Spain don't elect a person for presidency of their community: they elect the regional legislature, and that legislature elects the President: the executive power emanates from the people through the legislative power, instead of coming directly from the people. This system usually grants the government more stability because a candidate needs a majority to be elected (majority that is supposed to be loyal to him/her during the whole term), but has a drawback: a party can win the election (be the top-voted party) but might not win the presidency (have a majority).

This is the list of the persons who had been President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid:

List

⁺⁺PP: liberal-conservative

⁺PSOE: social-democratic

^*IU: communist+ecologist

The 6th term scandal

The PP won the elections held on May 25, 2003 with a plurality (55 out of 111 seats). The PSOE and IU, totalling 56 seats, started negotiations and achieved a pact, whose first step was to elect Francisco Cabaco, a PSOE deputy as the President of the Legislature. The left-winged coalition also planned to elect a favorable bureau, with 3 PP, 3 PSOE and 1 IU members.

But something went wrong: When, in the first session of the term, the temporary president called for voting, 2 PSOE seats were empty: their owners did not enter the room. The result: 4 PP members against 2 PSOE and 1 IU guaranteed a PP majority on the bureau.

Later, the "fled" deputies granted an interview on TV, blaming IU for their behaviour. They said they couldn't accept IU's conditions for a left-winged government in Madrid (which included IU controlling a big part of the budget). The PSOE immediately fired them, and blamed PP for "bribing them to prevent a left-winged government in Madrid" and "using paychecks to change the election results". PP refused accusations and sued PSOE after Supreme Madrid Justice Court (the higher madrilene justice instance before the Spanish Supreme Court) for calumnies. The sue was filed.

Eduardo Tamayo and María Teresa Sáez, the origin of the scandal, refused to return their seats to the PSOE, and created their own parliamentary group (the Mixed Group), thus creating a very strange situation: there wasn't any viable majority. The president of the legislature, Concepción Dancausa (PP) announced that, with the present situation, she was forced to call for new elections, so the PSOE candidate Rafael Simancas presented to a "fake" vote for investiture to force a 2 months delay.

In the meantime, a parliamentary committee investigated the causes of the "flee". After a month of 12-hour sessions, it approved a conclussion saying Tamayo and Saez didn't have an economic cause to flee from the legislature, and weren't bribed by PP. That conclussion was refused by the Plenary Session, by 55 votes YES (PP) and 56 votes NO (PSOE, IU and Mixed Group).

New elections were held on October 26, 2003. Tamayo and Sáez created a new political party, New Socialism; they obtained about 6,000 votes and no seats. The new result was a majority for the PP, with 57 seats against the PSOE's 45 and IU's 9. Some time later, PP candidate Esperanza Aguirre won the investiture vote and was appointed 3rd President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.