Plans for the primaries had been ongoing since the 2012 PSOE congress, which saw the adoption by the party of an open primary system to elect its candidates for prime minister. Initially scheduled for November 2014, the original proposal was scrapped following the party's defeat at the European Parliament election in May that year, which led to the resignation of PSOE leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and in an extraordinary congress to elect his successor. Pedro Sánchez emerged as the party's new secretary-general, after winning a closed primary—a novel system in PSOE's leadership elections—among party members. The prime ministerial primary was then rescheduled to July 2015, after the local and regional elections in May, with Sánchez launching his candidacy in September 2014.
Other potential contenders, such as Andalusian presidentSusana Díaz or former defence ministerCarme Chacón, ruled out running for the post. Concurrently, Sánchez's position was reinforced following the PSOE's relative success in the 24 May 2015 elections, in which it regained much of the territorial power it had lost in 2011. As a result, Sánchez was the only candidate who met the endorsement requirements to contest the primaries, leading to him being elected unopposed as the party's prime ministerial candidate on 21 June 2015.[2][3]
Throughout 2012 and 2013, as Rubalcaba's popularity declined, sectors within the party demanded a date being set for the primary election,[9][10][11] with the PSOE leadership claiming that it would be held a few months before the general election's scheduled date.[12][13] In order to park the internal debate, the party announced in January 2014 that it would be holding its prime ministerial primary in November that year.[14][15] Rubalcaba had reportedly not decided whether to run in the primary election himself,[16][17] conditioning his final position on the PSOE's results in the 2014 European Parliament election, scheduled for 25 May.[18]
The party's negative results in the European Parliament election forced Rubalcaba's retirement as PSOE leader and triggered an extraordinary party congress in July;[19] it saw Pedro Sánchez, a deputy for Madrid, being elected as new secretary-general through a closed primary election among party members.[20][21][22] All three main candidates in the leadership contest (Eduardo Madina, José Antonio Pérez Tapias and Sánchez himself) promised to keep the open primary system for selecting the party's nominee for prime minister,[23][24] but it was rescheduled to July 2015 to postpone any further internal struggles until after the local and regional elections in May.[25][26][27]
With Madina having ruled out contesting the primary following his defeat in the 2014 congress,[28] the only other major potential contenders were former defence ministerCarme Chacón—who had pushed for primaries ever since her aborted bid in the 2011 process—and Andalusian presidentSusana Díaz, but both declined to challenge Sánchez.[29]
Overview
The PSOE federal committee approved on 18 January 2014 a party regulation for the election of candidates to public offices through an open primary system.[30] This complemented existing regulations, which already established primaries as mandatory to elect prime ministerial nominees, except when the candidate already held the office of prime minister and was seeking re-election, in which case a primary election would only be held if explicitly requested by the federal committee as a body or by a majority of its members.[31]
The primary election was organized on the basis of plurality voting.[32] Voting comprised all members of the PSOE—including its regional branches—the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), the Socialist Youth of Spain (JSE) and the Socialist Youth of Catalonia (JSC), as well as all nationals over 16 years of age who had registered to participate in the process; such register required of the previous signing of a commitment and/or declaration of progressive principles and values as well as the payment of a minimum symbolic contribution of two euros.[33] Candidates seeking to run were required to collect the endorsements of at least 5% of party members, which for the 2015 prime ministerial primary amounted to 9,700 endorsements.[34][35] In the event of only one candidate meeting this requirement, the primaries would be left uncontested with such candidate being elected unopposed.[36][37]
Candidates
Candidate
Notable positions
Announced
Ref.
Qualified
Candidates who met endorsement requirements and qualified to contest the primary election.
Poll results are listed in the tables below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first, and using the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. If such date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the candidate's colour. In the instance of a tie, the figures with the highest percentages are shaded. Polls show data gathered among PSOE voters/supporters as well as Spanish voters as a whole, but not among party members, who were the ones ultimately entitled to vote in the primary election.
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