2012 PSOE leadership election


The 2012 PSOE leadership election—officially the 38th PSOE Federal Congress—was held between 3 and 5 February 2012 to elect a new party leadership in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. The congress was called after the PSOE suffered its worst defeat since the Spanish transition to democracy. Previous Secretary General José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had announced in April the same year he would not stand for election to a third term as Prime Minister of Spain, announcing his intention to step down as party leader after a successor had been elected.
The result was a close race between the two main candidates to the General Secretariat: Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the party's candidate for the 2011 general elections and former First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, and Carme Chacón Piqueras, former Minister of Defense. The ballot saw Rubalcaba win by a 51% of the vote to the 49% won by Carme Chacón, with 2 blank votes and 1 invalid vote.

Candidates

Proclaimed

Announced

On 8 January, Luis Ángel Hierro Recio—former party deputy in the Congress of Deputies between 2004 and 2007—tried to gather the required federal committee endorsements to be able to run in the party congress. However, he was unable to collect the required endorsements of at least 10% of federal committee members and was eliminated as a result.

Endorsements

Candidates seeking to run were required to collect the endorsements of at least 10% of federal committee members and of between 20% and 30% of congress delegates.

Opinion polls

Poll results are listed in the tables below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first, and using the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. If such date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the candidate's colour. In the instance of a tie, the figures with the highest percentages are shaded. Polls show data gathered among PSOE voters/supporters as well as Spanish voters as a whole, but not among delegates, who were the ones ultimately entitled to vote in the congress election.

PSOE voters

Spanish voters

Results