List of Presidents of Madrid: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

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 (Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spanish) was created in 1982. Autonomic elections are held every 4 years. This is the list of the persons who had been President of the Autonomous Community of Madrid:

List

⁺⁺PP: People's Party, liberal-conservative

⁺PSOE: Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, social-democratic

^*IU: United Left communist+ecologist

The PP won the elections held on May 25, 2003 with a plurality (55 out of 111 seats). PSOE and IU, both left-winged, started negotiations and achieved a pact, whose first step was to elect Francisco Cabaco, a PSOE MP as the President of the Parliament. The left coalition also planned to elect 3 PP MPs, 3 PSOE MPs and 1 IU MP to the legislature Table, thus granting itself the majority.

But something went really wrong. When, in the parliament constitutive session, the age president called for votation, 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 Table.

Later, the "fled" MPs 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 include IU controlling a big part of the budget). 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 demand was filed.

Eduardo Tamayo and María Teresa Sáez, the "eye of the tornado", refused to return their seats to PSOE, and created their own parliamentary 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 having to call for new elections, so PSOE candidate Rafael Simancas presented to a "fake" (he said he didn't want to be elected) vote for investiture to force a 2 months delay .

In the meantime, a parliamentary commission 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 parliament, 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).

Then, new elections were called 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 PP: 57 seats (48%, +2 seats), against PSOE: 45 seats (38%, -2 seats) and IU: 9 seats (8.5%, no change in seats). Some time later, PP candidate Esperanza Aguirre won the investiture vote and was named 3rd President of Madrid Autonomous Community.