The Corts Valencianes had 89 seats in their first election. All members were elected in three multi-member constituencies—corresponding to the provinces of Alicante, Castellón and Valencia, each of which was assigned an initial minimum of 20 seats and the remaining 29 distributed in proportion to population (with the seat-to-population ratio in any given province not exceeding three times that of any other)—using the D'Hondt method and closed-listproportional voting, with a five percent-threshold of valid votes (including blank ballots) regionally.[4][6][7]
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Corts constituency was entitled the following seats:[4][8]
The law did not provide for by-elections to fill vacant seats; instead, any vacancies arising after the proclamation of candidates and during the legislative term were filled by the next candidates on the party lists or, when required, by designated substitutes.[6]
Election date
The Council of the Valencian Country, in agreement with the Government of Spain and with the prior favorable vote of the Corts Valencianes during their transitional period, was required to call an election to the Corts within from 1 February to 31 May 1983. The Corts could not be dissolved before the expiration date of parliament.[4]
The Corts Valencianes were officially dissolved on 10 March 1983 with the publication of the corresponding decree in the DOGV, setting election day for 8 May and scheduling for the chamber to reconvene on 7 June.[9]
Parties and candidates
The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, alliances and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form an alliance 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 permille—and, in any case, 500 signatures—of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election, disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.[10]
Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
The electoral disaster of the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) in the October 1982 general election and the outcome of its extraordinary congress held in December, in which the party's leadership chose to transform the UCD into a christian democratic political force,[11] brought the party to a process of virtual disintegration as many of its remaining members either switched party allegiances, split into new, independent candidacies or left politics altogether.[12][13] Subsequent attempts to seek electoral allies ahead of the incoming 1983 local and regional elections, mainly the conservative People's Alliance (AP) and the christian democratic People's Democratic Party (PDP),[14][15] had limited success due to concerns from both AP and UCD over such alliance policy:[16][17] AP strongly rejected any agreement that implied any sort of global coalition with UCD due to the party's ongoing decomposition,[18][19] and prospects about a possible PDP–UCD merger did not come into fruition because of the latter's reluctance to dilute its brand within another party.[20][21][22] By the time the UCD's executive had voted for the liquidation of the party's mounting debts and its subsequent dissolution on 18 February 1983,[23][24][25] electoral alliances with the AP–PDP coalition had only been agreed in some provinces of the Basque Country and Galicia.[26][27][28]
Together with AP, the PDP had agreed to maintain their general election alliance—now rebranded as the People's Coalition—for the May local and regional elections,[29][30][31] with the inclusion of the Liberal Union (UL), a political party created in January 1983 out of independents from the AP–PDP coalition in an attempt to appeal to former UCD liberal voters.[28][32] The Coalition had seen its numbers soar from late February as a result of many former members from the UCD's christian democratic wing joining the PDP.[33][34][35]
Opinion polls
The table below lists voting intention estimates in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first and using the dates when the survey fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. Where the fieldwork dates are unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed with its background shaded in the leading party's colour. If a tie ensues, this is applied to the figures with the highest percentages. The "Lead" column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the parties with the highest percentages in a poll. When available, seat projections determined by the polling organisations are displayed below (or in place of) the percentages in a smaller font; 45 seats were required for an absolute majority in the Corts Valencianes.
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