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‘Bitter Victory, Sweet Defeat.’ The March 1996 General Elections and the New Government in Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Sebastian Balfour
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Extract

As The Results of The General Elections In Spain of 3 March were being announced, the leaders of the two main parties came out of their respective headquarters to greet the crowds of well-wishers. To judge by the expression on their faces, one could be forgiven for thinking that the victors had lost and the losers had won. A jubilant Felipe González, the outgoing Premier, uttered the phrase which serves as the main title of this article. The paradoxical outcome of the election was that in order to form a government, the victors were forced to seek the kind of parliamentary support which they had bitterly decried in the outgoing government and a pact with parties that they had mercilessly attacked during the previous legislature.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 1996 , pp. 275 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1996

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References

1 The 3 March elections were for both Congress, Senate and the regional government of Andalusia. This article will consider only the elections for Congress, out of which the new government was formed.

2 Ignacio Wert, José, ‘Las elecciones legislativas del 3‐M. Paisaje despues de la batalla’, Claves de Razán Práctica, No. 61, 04 1996, p. 40.Google Scholar

3 Partido Popular, Partido Socialista Obrero Español, Izquierda Unida (United Left), Convergncia i Uniá, Partido Nacionalista Vasco (the conservative Basque nationalist party), Coalicián Canaria (the Canary Island nationalist coalition), Bloque Nacionalista Galego (the Galician nationalist coalition), Herri Batasuna (the political wing of the Basque terrorist organization ETA), Eusko Alkartasuna (the centrist Basque nationalist grouping), Uniá Valenciana (the Valencian nationalist coalition).

4 Wert, op. cit., p. 40.

5 El Pais, 5 April 1996; Wert, op. cit., p. 41.

6 The Partido Andalucista (PA) did not put up candidates for the 1993 general elections.

7 El Pais, 6 May 1996, p. 18.

8 24 April 1996, p. 15.

9 The Catalan government has estimated that Catalonia alone will raise an extra 1 billion in tax revenue between 1997 and 2001: El Pais, 25 May 1996, p. 26.

10 El Pais, 29 April, 1996, p. 20.

11 19 May 1996, p. 8 and 26 May 1996, p. 22.

12 El Pais, 6 May 1996, p. 15.

13 ABC editorial, 15 May 1996; Cambio 16, 6 May 1996, p. 34.

14 El Pais, 16 May 1996, p. 16.