The 2022 Castilian-Leonese regional election was held on Sunday, 13 February 2022, to elect the 11th Cortes of the autonomous community of Castile and León. All 81 seats in the Cortes were up for election. This marks the first time that a regional premier in Castile and León has made use of the presidential prerogative to call an early election.
The previous election had seen a victory for the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) for the first time since 1983, but the ruling People's Party (PP) was able to elect its candidate, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, as new regional president by forming a coalition with the liberal Citizens (Cs). Despite this arrangement, tensions soon began to emerge between the two governing partners over the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region. In March 2021, a PSOE-tabled vote of no confidence was defeated, but it indirectly led to the defection of one Cs legislator to the opposition, leaving the PP–Cs government in minority status. Subsequently, rumours rose on the possibility of Mañueco planning a snap election to be held at some point between the winter of 2021 and the spring of 2022, after having grown tired of the coalition as well as to take advantage of the PP's "honeymoon" in opinion polls following the Madrilenian election in May. On 20 December 2021, Mañueco expelled Cs from his government and called the election for 13 February 2022, catching his coalition partner off-guard, with his (now former) deputy Francisco Igea learning of it during a live interview.
Results on election night were dubbed by most media as a pyrrhic victory for the PP, which failed to materialize early expectations of a landslide win in a historical stronghold, and instead ended up obtaining its worst result ever in both votes and vote share in the region, as well as a very close result with the PSOE, which was able to secure a stronger-than-expected performance, despite losing ground compared to 2019. The vote share for Cs collapsed and the party was barely able to retain Igea's seat in Valladolid but was successful in its primary goal of preventing a total wipeout. The far-right Vox party secured its best result in an autonomous community election in Spain up until that point, with 17.6% of the vote share and 13 seats. Unidas Podemos underperformed opinion polls, whereas regionalist Leonese People's Union (UPL) and For Ávila (XAV) secured their best results to date. Soria Now (SY)—a social platform aligned to the Empty Spain movement—won in the Soria constituency in a landslide. Together, both PP and Vox commanded a majority of 44 out of 81 seats, and formed a coalition government.
Overview
Electoral system
The Cortes of Castile and León were the devolved, unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Castile and León, having legislative power in regional matters as defined by the Spanish Constitution and the Castilian-Leonese Statute of Autonomy, as well as the ability to vote confidence in or withdraw it from a regional president. Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Castile and León and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Additionally, Castilian-Leonese people abroad were required to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote ().
All members of the Cortes of Castile and León were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency. Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Ávila, Burgos, León, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, Valladolid and Zamora, with each being allocated an initial minimum of three seats, as well as one additional member per each 45,000 inhabitants or fraction greater than 22,500.
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Cortes constituency was entitled the following seats:
The use of the D'Hondt method might result in a higher effective threshold, depending on the district magnitude.
