The president of the Government of Spain (Spanish: Presidente del Gobierno de España), commonly referred to in Spain as Presidente del Gobierno, and known in English as the prime minister of Spain, is the head of government of Spain. The office was established in its current form by the Constitution of 1978 and it was first regulated in 1823 as a chairmanship of the extant Council of Ministers, although it is not possible to determine when it actually originated.
Upon a vacancy, the Spanish monarch nominates a presidency candidate for a vote of confidence by the Congress of Deputies of Spain, the lower house of the Cortes Generales (parliament). The process is a parliamentarian investiture by which the head of government is indirectly elected by the elected Congress of Deputies. In practice, the prime minister is almost always the leader of the largest party in the Congress. Since current constitutional practice in Spain calls for the king to act on the advice of his ministers, the prime minister is the country's de facto chief executive.
Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) has been Prime Minister since 2 June 2018, after a successful motion of no confidence against former prime minister Mariano Rajoy. The Sánchez government technically ceased on 29 April 2019 after the 2019 Spanish general election, but was acting afterwards. However, following the November 2019 general election, Sánchez earned a second mandate as Prime Minister after receiving a plurality of votes in the second round vote of his investiture at the Congress of Deputies on 7 January 2020. He then resumed being the official prime minister after he was sworn in by King Felipe on 8 January 2020. His new government was then sworn in by King Felipe on 13 January 2020.
1973Dec, 20
The Prime Minister of Spain, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.
Choose Another Date
Events on 1973
- 20Jul
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee, the famous Chinese actor and martial-arts expert, dies in Los Angeles at age 32 from a brain edema possibly caused by a reaction to a prescription painkiller. - 15Aug
Cambodia
Vietnam War: The United States bombing of Cambodia ends. - 22Aug
Salvador Allende
The Congress of Chile votes in favour of a resolution condemning President Salvador Allende's government and demands that he resign or else be unseated through force and new elections. - 17Oct
1973 oil crisis
OPEC imposes an oil embargo against a number of Western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria. - 4Nov
1973 oil crisis
The Netherlands experiences the first Car-Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are used only by cyclists and roller skaters.