Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District)

Valencia is one of the 52 electoral districts (Spanish: circunscripciones) used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies—the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. It is the third largest district in Congress in terms of the numbers of deputies elected, as it elects sixteen deputies out of the total number of three hundred and fifty. Corresponding to the Province of Valencia, most of the electorate resides in the metropolitan area of Valencia which includes Valencia City and its satellite towns such as Torrent, Paterna, Mislata, Burjassot and Xirivella.

In political terms, the district has shown a long term shift to the right. Valencia initially favoured the parties of the left and centre left who won nine of the district’s fifteen seats in the 1977 election, an election which was won overall by the centre right Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD). However by 2008, despite the fact that the centre left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) won the election, the centre right People's Party (PP) won nine of the sixteen seats in the district. Although smaller parties such as United Left and Valencian Union polled over 10% in previous elections and won seats, elections until 2008 had become dominated by the two main Spanish parties, the PSOE and PP, who won all the seats in the 2008 election and together received over 90% of the votes cast. However at the 2011 election, United Left regained a seat, while Coalició Compromís and Union, Progress and Democracy won their first seats in the district.