Early Parliamentary Elections, 20 November 2011

Following an official invitation from the Permanent Mission of Spain to the OSCE and in accordance with its mandate, the OSCE/ODIHR deployed an election assessment mission (EAM) to observe the 20 November 2011 early parliamentary elections.

The OSCE/ODIHR EAM was headed by Nikolai Vulchanov and included five other experts, all drawn from six OSCE participating States. The EAM was based in Madrid, but made visits to Zaragoza, Lleida, Seville and Bilbao.

Previous Elections

ODIHR has assessed two elections in Spain, the parliamentary elections of 2004 and 2008. The Election Assessment Mission for the 2008 parliamentary elections concluded that “the elections were conducted in a manner which reflected Spain’s established democratic tradition and a high level of public confidence in the overall process. The Spanish electoral system encourages political diversity and pluralism, offering voters a wide and genuine choice.” The mission also mentioned that “some aspects of legislation and practice could benefit from a review, including allocation of seats among constituencies for the Chamber of Deputies to enhance the equality of the vote and polling station procedures to fully ensure the secrecy of the vote.”