1936 Spanish general election

1936 Spanish general election

← 1933 16 February 1936 (first round) 4 March 1936 (second round) 3 May 1936 (second round, partial re-run) 1967 →
All 473 seats of the Congress of Deputies 237 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	72.95%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Indalecio Prieto José María Gil-Robles Manuel Azaña Party PSOE CEDA IR Leader since 1935 4 March 1933 3 April 1934 Leader's seat Vizcaya-capital Salamanca Madrid-capital Last election 59 seats 115 seats 14 seats [nb 1] Seats won 99 88 87 Seat change 40 27 73   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Diego Martínez Barrio Lluís Companys Manuel Portela Party Republican Union Republican Left of Catalonia Party of the Democratic Centre Leader since 1934 1932 1936 Leader's seat Madrid-province Barcelona-capital Pontevedra Last election N/A 17 N/A Seats won 37 21 17 Seat change 37 4 17
Left: Winner strength by region (alliances) Right: Seat breakdown by region (alliances) Seat breakdown by region (parties)
Prime Minister before election Manuel Portela Valladares (acting) PCD Prime Minister after election Manuel Azaña IR

Legislative elections were held in Spain on 16 February 1936. At stake were all 473 seats in the unicameral Cortes Generales. The winners of the 1936 elections were the Popular Front, a left-wing coalition of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Republican Left (Spain) (IR), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Republican Union (UR), Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Acció Catalana (AC), and other parties. Their coalition commanded a narrow lead over the divided opposition in terms of the popular vote, but a significant lead over the main opposition party, Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA), in terms of seats. The election had been prompted by a collapse of a government led by Alejandro Lerroux, and his Radical Republican Party. Manuel Azaña would replace Manuel Portela Valladares, caretaker, as prime minister.

The electoral process and the accuracy of the results have been historically disputed. Some of the causes of this controversy include the formation of a new cabinet before the results were clear, a lack of reliable electoral data, and the overestimation of election fraud in the official narrative that justified the coup d'état.^[1][2][3][4] The topic has been addressed in seminal studies by renowned authors such as Javier Tusell and Stanley G. Payne.^[5][6] A series of recent works has shifted the focus from the legitimacy of the election and the government to an analysis of the extent of irregularities.^[7][8] Whilst one of them suggests that the impact of fraud was higher than previously estimated when including new election datasets, the other disputes their relevance in the election result.^[7][8]

The elections were the last of three legislative elections held during the Spanish Second Republic, coming three years after the 1933 general election which had brought the first of Lerroux's governments to power. The uncontested victory of the political left in the elections of 1936 triggered a wave of collectivisation, mainly in the south and west of the Iberian Peninsula, engaging up to three million people,^[9] which has been identified as a key cause of the July coup.^[10] The right-wing military coup initiated by Gens. Sanjurjo and Franco, the ensuing civil war, and the establishment of Franco's dictatorship ultimately brought about the end of parliamentary democracy in Spain until the 1977 general election.

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