# 1979 Seville City Council election

The 1979 Seville City Council election, also the 1979 Seville municipal election, was held on Tuesday, 3 April 1979, to elect the 1st City Council of the municipality of Seville. All 31 seats in the City Council were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with local elections all throughout Spain.

## Electoral system

The City Council of Seville (Spanish: Ayuntamiento de Sevilla) was the top-tier administrative and governing body of the municipality of Seville, composed of the mayor, the government council and the elected plenary assembly. Voting for the local assembly was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in the municipality of Seville and in full enjoyment of their civil and political rights.
Local councillors were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of five percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each local council. Councillors were allocated to municipal councils based on the following scale:
| Population | Councillors |
| <250 | 5 |
| 251–1,000 | 7 |
| 1,001–2,000 | 9 |
| 2,001–5,000 | 11 |
| 5,001–10,000 | 13 |
| 10,001–20,000 | 17 |
| 20,001–50,000 | 21 |
| 50,001–100,000 | 25 |
| >100,001 | +1 per each 100,000 inhabitants or fraction +1 if total is an even number |
The mayor was indirectly elected by the plenary assembly. A legal clause required that mayoral candidates earned the vote of an absolute majority of councillors, or else the candidate of the most-voted party in the assembly was to be automatically appointed to the post. In the event of a tie, the eldest one would be elected.

## Parties and candidates

The electoral law allowed for parties and federations registered in the interior ministry, coalitions and groupings of electors to present lists of candidates. Parties and federations intending to form a coalition ahead of an election were required to inform the relevant Electoral Commission within fifteen days of the election call, whereas groupings of electors needed to secure the signature of at least one-thousandth of the electorate in the constituencies for which they sought election—with a compulsory minimum of 500 signatures—disallowing electors from signing for more than one list of candidates.
Below is a list of the main parties and electoral alliances which contested the election:
| Candidacy | Parties and alliances | Leading candidate | Ideology | Gov. |
| UCD | List Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) | Rafael López Palanco | Centrism | N |
| PSOE | List Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) | Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar | Social democracy | N |
| PSA–PA | List Socialist Party of Andalusia–Andalusian Party (PSA–PA) | Luis Uruñuela | Andalusian nationalism Socialism Marxism | N |
| PCE | List Communist Party of Spain (PCE) | Alonso Balosa | Eurocommunism | N |

## Results

Summary of the 3 April 1979 City Council of Seville election results → :
| Parties and alliances | Parties and alliances | Popular vote | Popular vote | Popular vote | Seats | Seats |
| Parties and alliances | Parties and alliances | Votes | % | ±pp | Total | +/− |
| | Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) | 65,725 | 27.09 | n/a | 9 | n/a |
| | Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) | 60,116 | 24.78 | n/a | 8 | n/a |
| | Socialist Party of Andalusia–Andalusian Party (PSA–PA) | 56,957 | 23.48 | n/a | 8 | n/a |
| | Communist Party of Spain (PCE) | 44,704 | 18.43 | n/a | 6 | n/a |
| | Party of Labour of Andalusia (PTA) | 3,747 | 1.54 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Democratic Coalition (CD) | 2,850 | 1.17 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | New Force (FN) | 2,243 | 0.92 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Communist Organization of Spain (Red Flag) (OCE–BR) | 1,745 | 0.72 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Spanish Communist Workers' Party (PCOE) | 1,576 | 0.65 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Communist Unification of Spain (UCE) | 982 | 0.40 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (historical) (PSOEh) | 891 | 0.37 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) | 456 | 0.19 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Communist Movement–Organization of Communist Left (MCA–OIC) | 290 | 0.12 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| | Workers' Revolutionary Organization (ORT) | 0 | 0.00 | n/a | 0 | n/a |
| Blank ballots | Blank ballots | 325 | 0.13 | n/a | | |
| Total | Total | 242,607 | | | 31 | n/a |
| Valid votes | Valid votes | 242,607 | 99.50 | n/a | | |
| Invalid votes | Invalid votes | 1,220 | 0.50 | n/a | | |
| Votes cast / turnout | Votes cast / turnout | 243,827 | 56.98 | n/a | | |
| Abstentions | Abstentions | 184,124 | 43.02 | n/a | | |
| Registered voters | Registered voters | 427,951 | | | | |
| Sources |||||||
Popular vote
UCD
27.09%
PSOE
24.78%
PSA–PA
23.48%
PCE
18.43%
PTA
1.54%
CD
1.17%
Others
3.37%
Blank ballots
0.13% :
Seats
UCD
29.03%
PSOE
25.81%
PSA–PA
25.81%
PCE
19.35% :