Regional election in Navarra, 28 May 2023

On May 28, 2023, elections were held to renew the 50 seats in the regional parliament of the Chartered Community of Navarre.

In 2019, the center-left coalition led by the PSOE (S&D) had won the presidency of the region, forming a minority cabinet. The PSOE’s victory came at the end of a parliamentary term dominated by a left-wing pro-independence coalition, and the new center-left executive still relied on the parliamentary support of various nationalist and regionalist parties, as well as the abstention of 5 of the 7 deputies of the Navarran nationalist party EH-Bildu (GUE/NGL). However, from March 2023 onwards, the PSOE list led by President Maria Chivite ranked second in the polls behind the right-wing pro-independence UPN (EPP), with neither party being able to claim a majority on its own.

Despite competition between multiple right-wing lists (unlike in 2019, when UPN, PPE and Ciudadanos had formed a joint list in 2019), the center-right and far-right bloc managed to keep its 20 deputies. Vox’s gain of two deputies (CRE; 4.3%, +3 pp) offsets the disappearance of Ciudadanos (RE; 0.3%). The UPN (28%, 15 seats) came out on top, well ahead of the PP (7.3%, 3 seats). However, with only 20 seats, the right-wing bloc cannot hope to govern the region, which it lost in 2015.

There was little change in the results of the left-wing coalition: both the PSOE (20.7%, +0.1 pp) and Podemos – Contigo Navarra (GUE/NGL; 6.1%, -1.5 pp) retained their respective 11 and 3 seats. Only the regionalist party Geroa Bai (13.2%, -4.1 pp, 7 seats) suffered from its participation in the government, losing 2 seats to EH-Bildu (17.1%, +2.6 pp, 9 seats). EH-Bildu finally decided to abstain from the investiture vote, and the PSOE-Geroa Bai-Podemos-Contigo Navarra coalition again formed a minority government on August 15, 2023 with 21 votes in favor, 20 against, and 9 abstaining.

The Data