2008 Spanish general election

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 9 March 2008, to elect the members of the 9th Cortes Generales under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 264 seats in the Senate. It was held concurrently with a regional election in Andalusia.

The surprise victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) at the 2004 election, amid the public shock caused by the 11M Madrid train bombings, had led to an increase of bipolarisation in Spanish politics, with the opposition People's Party (PP) under Mariano Rajoy and right-wing media embracing conspiracy theories about the blasts' authorship and motives while engaging in a strategy of rising tension and street protests against the new government. One of the first measures adopted by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, which caused a downturn in relations with the U.S. administration of George W. Bush. This period saw the implementation of same-sex marriage in Spain, express divorce, measures fostering women's rights and the fight against gender-based violence, as well as the Historical Memory Law recognizing the victims of political repression during the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship.

Zapatero's decision to engage in talks with the separatist group ETA—after three years of relative calm and a ceasefire in March 2006—was not without controversy, and the government was forced to halt all negotiations following the Madrid–Barajas Airport bombing in December that year. The PSOE government also attempted to enforce a policy of reform of the regional statutes of autonomy, with the issue of the 2006 Catalan statute being the most controversial: its curtailment in the Cortes Generales caused the downfall of regional president Pasqual Maragall's cabinet and an appeal to the Constitutional Court being filed by the PP. Although Zapatero's first term saw a continuation of the economic growth of previous years, the growing property bubble in housing prices and a multinational subprime mortgage crisis started showing symptoms of a potential real estate and financial crisis by late 2007.

The electoral outcome saw a record result for both PSOE and PP, which combined amounted for more than 83% of the vote share and 92% of Congress seats. The PSOE benefitted from tactical voting against the PP—at the cost of peripheral nationalist parties, such as Convergence and Union, Republican Left of Catalonia, the Basque Nationalist Party or Chunta Aragonesista, falling to historical lows of popular support—and emerged as the most-voted party just seven seats short of an overall majority, which allowed Zapatero to be sworn in for a second term in office in April 2008. On the other hand, Rajoy's PP saw an increase in its vote share and seat count, but remained unable to overtake the Socialists. United Left had its worst general election performance ever with less than four percent of the share and two seats, whereas the new Union, Progress and Democracy party—founded by former PSOE member and leadership contender Rosa Díez—became the first nationwide party aside from PSOE, PP and IU to secure seats since the Democratic and Social Centre was left out of parliament in 1993.