Leader of the Opposition (Spain)

Role

Not specifically provided legally, the workings of the post are mostly based on custom, protocol and convention. The term "leader of the opposition" is only legally recognized in a Royal Decree passed in 1983 establishing the order of preference of public authorities in general official acts organized by the Crown, Government or the State Administration, acknowledging the figure of Opposition Leader but only to put it in fifteenth place in the list of precedences.

By agreement of the Congress Bureau of 28 December 1982, Manuel Fraga was acknowledged as leader of the opposition by the PSOE government of Felipe González—himself having unofficially led opposition from 1977 to 1982. Such an agreement, further expanded on 8 February 1983, established a series of conditions for the role and awarded some prerogatives for the officeholder:

1. Determination of the person fulfilling the role of leader of the opposition must meet criteria of effective parliamentary number preeminence.
2. There must not be a formal appointment.
3. There is no need to raise compatibility issues for the role.
4. Must lack a full-blown salary, even if it may have a right to representation expenses, vehicle availability as well as the care provided for bureau members.

The leader of the opposition is entitled a special office in the Congress of Deputies if he or she is a member of the chamber. In addition, the officeholder usually receives much more attention from the media in parliamentary sessions and activities, such as in the yearly-held State of the Nation Debate. Established precedent has also led for the leader of the opposition usually sitting directly across from the prime minister in the Congress seating plan, so long as he or she has a seat in the Congress of Deputies. While it is not required for a leader of the opposition to have a seat in Congress, there have been only three occasions where the recognized officeholder did not have such a seat:

• Antonio Hernández Mancha (1987–1989), who had a seat in the Senate.
• Pedro Sánchez (2017–2018), who vacated his Congress seat after resigning as PSOE leader in October 2016 and remained unseated upon re-election.
• Alberto Núñez Feijóo (2022–2023) who served as President of the Regional Government of Galicia, subsequently, he had a seat in the Senate.

Even with the absence of a law defining the role of the opposition leader, it is customary to conduct update meetings between the prime minister and the chairman of the largest party not within the government. However, such meetings are carried out mostly at the prime minister's leisure.

History

Before 1983, the figure served only as an informal reference to the "Leader of the Main Opposition Party", who at the time was Felipe González as leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the main opposition party in Spain during the country's transition to democracy until 1982. The first recognized leader of the opposition was Manuel Fraga, who in February 1983 was granted such a formal status by the Congress of Deputies Bureau, despite the rejection of several parties.

On 1 December 1986, Manuel Fraga resigned as People's Alliance chairman and was replaced in the interim by Miguel Herrero de Miñón. While Herrero de Miñón served as interim AP leader until a party congress was held in February 1987, he was acknowledged as Opposition Leader on his own right. This lasted until he was defeated by Antonio Hernández Mancha in the 1987 AP congress, which prompted his resignation as the party's parliamentary speaker and leader on 8 February 1987. Hernández Mancha became leader of the opposition, but was hampered by the fact of him not being a deputy at the time.

In 1998, with the People's Party in government, Josep Borrell beat PSOE Secretary General Joaquín Almunia in a party primary to elect the party's candidate to prime minister in the subsequent general election. Almunia maintained his post as party leader whereas Borrell was named the party's spokesperson in Congress and was awarded leadership over the parliamentary party, with the later being officially referred to as the leader of the opposition. However, both Almunia and Borrell kept clashing on leadership issues for months—in a situation referred to as 'bicephaly'—until an agreement between the two parts definitely recognized Borrell the condition of opposition leader in November 1998. He would eventually resign as candidate in May 1999, awarding Almunia the sole and undisputed leadership over the party and opposition.

The office came again under dispute in 2016, days after a caretaker committee under Javier Fernández had taken control over PSOE as a result of a leadership crisis in October. Podemos' Pablo Iglesias subsequently self-proclaimed himself as new opposition leader on the basis of his party's strength in Congress being close to PSOE's—67 seats to 84. During Mariano Rajoy's second investiture debate on 27 October, Spanish media and parliamentarians informally acknowledged Iglesias the role of opposition leader by virtue of Rajoy addressing him as his main rival during a heated dialectical exchange, coupled with PSOE's perceived inability to exercise as opposition after choosing to allow Rajoy's election. The chaos ensuing from the vacancy in the PSOE leadership led to other parties not recognizing a formal opposition leader.

Pedro Sánchez nominally re-assumed the title once he was reelected as PSOE leader in June 2017, although he did not have a seat in parliament as a result of him resigning in protest to his party tolerating Rajoy's second government in October 2016. The position was left vacant after Mariano Rajoy was ousted as prime minister in a motion of no confidence on 2 June 2018—with Rajoy himself rejecting to assume the title again—, until the election of Pablo Casado as new PP leader. From 23 February 2022, the position was again left vacant following an internal PP rebellion, led by Galician and Madrilenian presidents Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, that resulted in the downfall of Casado as party leader following his abandonment by most of his party's colleagues and other leading members.

List of opposition leaders

Timeline

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Colors = id:AP value:rgb(0.957,0.694,0.000) legend:AP id:PP value:rgb(0.094,0.525,0.808) legend:PP id:PSOE value:rgb(0.937,0.094,0.129) legend:PSOE id:gray1 value:gray(0.85) id:gray2 value:gray(0.95) id:grid value:gray(0.5)

DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1982 till: TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = gridcolor:gray1 unit:year increment:5 start:1985 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:gray2 unit:year increment:1 start:1982

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TextData = pos:(20,27) textcolor:black fontsize:M text:"Political parties:"

BarData = barset:PM bar:Fraga bar:HMiñón bar:HMancha bar:Aznar bar:González bar:Almunia bar:Borrell bar:Zapatero bar:Rajoy bar:Rubalcaba bar:Sánchez bar:Casado bar:Feijóo

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bar:Fraga from: 28/12/1982 till: 01/12/1986 color:AP from: 20/01/1989 till: 21/11/1989 color:PP text:"Fraga" fontsize:10 bar:HMiñón from: 23/12/1986 till: 08/02/1987 color:AP text:"Herrero" fontsize:10 bar:HMancha from: 08/02/1987 till: 20/01/1989 color:AP text:"Hdez. Mancha" fontsize:10 bar:Aznar from: 21/11/1989 till: 04/05/1996 color:PP text:"Aznar" fontsize:10 bar:González from: 05/05/1996 till: 21/06/1997 color:PSOE text:"González" fontsize:10 bar:Almunia from: 21/06/1997 till: 26/05/1998 color:PSOE from: 14/05/1999 till: 12/03/2000 color:PSOE text:"Almunia" fontsize:10 bar:Borrell from: 26/05/1998 till: 14/05/1999 color:PSOE text:"Borrell" fontsize:10 bar:Zapatero from: 22/07/2000 till: 16/04/2004 color:PSOE text:"Zapatero" fontsize:10 bar:Rajoy from: 17/04/2004 till: 20/12/2011 color:PP from: 02/06/2018 till: 21/07/2018 color:PP text:"Rajoy" fontsize:10 bar:Rubalcaba from: 21/12/2011 till: 26/07/2014 color:PSOE text:"Rubalcaba" fontsize:10 bar:Sánchez from: 26/07/2014 till: 01/10/2016 color:PSOE from: 18/06/2017 till: 02/06/2018 color:PSOE text:"Sánchez" fontsize:10 bar:Casado from: 21/07/2018 till: 02/04/2022 color:PP text:"Casado" fontsize:10 bar:Feijóo from: 02/04/2022 till: color:PP text:"Feijóo" fontsize:10

Notes

References

References

1. (August 4, 1983). "General Order of Precedence in the State of 1983".
2. (15 June 2017). "Protocolo para el "jefe" del PSOE (ex-diputado)".
3. Díez, Anabel. (5 August 1986). "Las minorías parlamentarias esperan que Fraga pierda el estatuto de jefe de la oposición". El País.
4. Calleja, Mariano. (9 November 2011). "El PSOE ve "mejorable" el despacho del jefe de la oposición y quiere reformarlo". ABC.
5. Méndez, Lucía. (9 April 2017). "El despacho vacío del líder de la oposición". El Mundo.
6. Cortizo, Gonzalo. (21 June 2017). "El Congreso situará a Pedro Sánchez en la tribuna de invitados en la conmemoración de los 40 años de democracia". eldiario.es.
7. Méndez, Lucía. (31 May 2018). "Moción de tortura para Rajoy". El Mundo.
8. Cortizo, Gonzalo. (4 June 2018). "Mariano Rajoy ordena el traslado de sus papeles al despacho de líder de la oposición en el Congreso". eldiario.es.
9. Agencias. (22 February 2015). "Rajoy y Sánchez, ante un debate sobre el estado de la nación que será palanca electoral". La Vanguardia.
10. . ["Qué pasó con... Hernández Mancha, ex presidente de AP"](http://www.expansion.com/2007/08/16/entorno/1026517.html). *Expansión*.
11. Mármol, Iolanda. (3 September 2017). "Pedro Sánchez, cara y cruz para el PSOE de un líder sin escaño". El Periódico de Catalunya.
12. Hierro, Jesús. (5 April 2022). "Feijóo dimitirá como presidente gallego "en cuestión de semanas"". ABC.
13. (9 November 1979). "Suárez y Felipe González estudiaron el pacto municipal y el calendario autonómico". El País.
14. (6 November 1982). "El Rey recibió en la Zarzuela a Fraga en su calidad de futuro jefe de la oposición". El País.
15. (8 February 1983). "La Mesa del Congreso aprobará hoy el estatuto del líder de la oposición". El País.
16. De la Cuadra, Bonifacio. (9 February 1983). "La Mesa del Congreso acuerda que Fraga sea de la oposición con medios materiales y humanos". El País.
17. Fuente, Carlos. (29 January 1983). ""No se puede reconocer a Fraga como jefe de la oposición", declara Santiago Carrillo". El País.
18. (2 December 1986). "Manuel Fraga dimite como presidente de Alianza Popular". El País.
19. (6 December 1986). "Herrero de Miñón tendrá "todos los poderes" en Alianza Popular hasta el congreso extraordinario". El País.
20. (7 December 1986). "La oposición tiene nuevo jefe". El País.
21. Díez, Anabel. (24 December 1986). "Miguel Herrero tiene desde ayer las prerrogativas de jefe de la oposición". El País.
22. (8 February 1987). "Hernández Mancha busca un sucesor de Herrero al frente del grupo parlamentario". El País.
23. Jáuregui, Fernando. (8 February 1987). "Hernández Mancha venció por holgada mayoría a Herrero en el congreso extraordinario de AP". El País.
24. (24 March 1987). "Hernández Mancha presenta una moción de censura para lograr el 'cuerpo a cuerpo' con Felipe González". El País.
25. . (25 April 1998). ["Borrell da un vuelco a la escena política con su triunfo claro sobre Almunia"](http://elpais.com/hemeroteca/elpais/portadas/1998/04/25/). *El País*.
26. González Ibáñez, Juan. (26 April 1998). "Borrell será el portavoz socialista en el Congreso y hablará en el debate del estado de la nación". El País.
27. Molist, Merce. (14 May 1998). "Balance del debate". El País.
28. Valdecantos, Camilo. (27 May 1998). "Apoyo unánime del PSOE a la nueva dirección del Grupo Parlamentario". El País.
29. OTR/Press. (17 November 1998). "Almunia deja en manos del Comité Federal el reparto de papeles mientras Borrell reitera que es el líder". El Mundo.
30. Agencia EFE. (21 November 1998). "Cronología de una crisis". El País.
31. Díez, Anabel. (22 November 1998). "Borrell y Almunia ceden para evitar un congreso". El País.
32. Díaz, Anabel. (15 May 1999). "Borrell renuncia como candidato por el escándalo de sus ex colaboradores". El País.
33. Ríos, Daniel. (7 October 2016). "Iglesias se proclama líder de la oposición y defiende un Podemos "militante"". infoLibre.
34. Carvajal, Álvaro. (7 October 2016). "Pablo Iglesias: "El PSOE ha renunciado y nos ha entregado la oposición al PP"". El Mundo.
35. García, Gustavo. (27 October 2016). "Rajoy e Iglesias escenifican sus nuevos papeles como presidente y jefe de la oposición". El Boletín.
36. . (27 October 2016). ["Diputados afines a Sánchez ven una "humillación" que Iglesias ya lidere la oposición"](http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-diputados-afines-sanchez-ven-humillacion-iglesias-ya-lidere-oposicion-20161027142633.html). *Europa Press*.
37. Gil, Iván. (27 October 2016). "El debate inviste a Rajoy como presidente y a Iglesias como jefe virtual de la oposición". El Confidencial.
38. Mármol, Iolanda. (27 October 2016). "Iglesias se arroga el liderazgo de la oposición ante un PSOE noqueado". El Periódico de Catalunya.
39. . (28 October 2016). ["Pablo Casado: "Me preocupa que la antipolítica de Podemos sea ahora el liderazgo de la oposición""](http://www.ondacero.es/programas/mas-de-uno/audios-podcast/entrevistas/pablo-casado-me-preocupa-que-la-antipolitica-de-podemos-sea-ahora-el-liderazgo-de-la-oposicion_20161028581301540cf2d6cc9cc0cc1a.html). *Onda Cero*.
40. Anasagasti, Iñaki. (13 November 2016). "No existe líder de la oposición". Noticias de Gipuzkoa.
41. (28 June 2018). "Pedro Sánchez ejerce de Jefe de la Oposición en el protocolo". La Razón.
42. Mateo, Juan José. (15 June 2018). "Rajoy deja de ser diputado y solicita el reingreso como registrador de la propiedad". El País.
43. Del Riego, Carmen. (21 February 2022). "Feijóo, Moreno, Ayuso y Mañueco se alían para pedir la dimisión de Casado". La Vanguardia.
44. (23 February 2022). "Casado se despide como jefe de la oposición y Sánchez garantiza que no adelanta elecciones". El Confidencial.