A general election was held in Spain on 12 March 2000 to elect the members of the 7th under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 259 seats in the Senate. It was held concurrently with a regional election in Andalusia. At four years since the previous one, the 2000 election ended the longest legislative period up to that point since the Spanish transition to democracy.

The incumbent People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister José María Aznar had been able to access power (for the first time since the Spanish transition to democracy) through the Majestic Pact in 1996 with peripheral nationalist parties, namely: Convergence and Union (CiU), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Canarian Coalition (CC). In that period, Aznar's cabinet presided over an economic boom—together with a privatization of state-owned companies—a reduction in unemployment and the introduction of the euro, as well as increasing public outcry at the ETA group's terrorist activity (seeing the killings of Miguel Ángel Blanco in 1997 and Fernando Buesa days before the campaign start), and an early social response to growing immigration to Spain, with the El Ejido riots in February 2000. The opposition was divided, with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) looking for stable leadership after the farewell of Felipe González at the 1997 party's congress, and a period of duumvirate between his successor, Joaquín Almunia, and prime ministerial nominee Josep Borrell (elected through primaries), until the latter's sudden resignation in May 1999. United Left (IU) descended into internal infighting and saw a number of splits, including that of Initiative for Catalonia (IC).

The election saw the PP securing an unexpected absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies, obtaining 183 out of 350 seats and increasing its margin of victory with the PSOE. A pre-election agreement between the PSOE and IU was unsuccessful, with such alliance being said to prompt tactical voting for Aznar, who also benefited from a moderate stance during his tenure. Almunia announced his resignation immediately after results were known, triggering a leadership election. Regional and peripheral nationalist parties improved their results, except for CiU—which had been in electoral decline for a decade following its support to Spanish ruling parties—and the abertzale left-supported Euskal Herritarrok (EH), which urged its voters in the Basque Country and Navarre to boycott the election. The PNV benefitted from EH's absence and gained two seats, whereas both CC and the Galician Nationalist Bloc had strong showings in their respective regions. IC clung on to parliamentary representation but suffered from the electoral competition with United and Alternative Left, IU's newly-founded regional branch in Catalonia, which failed to secure any seat. This would be the only general election in which both parties would run separately.

This marked the first of two times that the PP secured a nationwide absolute majority, its best result in both popular vote share and seats up until then (only exceeded in 2011), as well as the first time that PP results exceeded the combined totals for PSOE and IU. In contrast, the PSOE got its worst election result in 21 years. This was the second time a single party received more than 10 million votes in Spanish history, the previous one being in 1982. Voter turnout was one of the lowest for Spanish election standards up to that time, with only 68.7% of the electorate casting a vote.

Background

On 5 May 1996, José María Aznar from the People's Party (PP) was able to form the first centre-right government in Spain since 1982 through confidence and supply agreements with Convergence and Union (CiU), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), and Canarian Coalition, in what was coined the Majestic Pact. The relationship between the PP and its parliamentary allies was a focus of political interest due to its importance to government stability, the previous animosity between the PP and peripheral nationalism (particularly CiU and PNV) and diverging stances over the degree of devolution to be awarded to autonomous communities.

The new government focused its economic efforts on meeting the Maastricht criteria by reducing inflation, public debt and budget deficit, while reactivating the private sector through orthodox economics. It debuted by approving a package of spending cuts and a freeze on civil servants' wages for 1997, followed by the liberalization of key sectors (with the approval of new laws on the telecommunications industry and the property market), and the privatization of state-owned companies (such as Telefónica, Tabacalera, Endesa and Repsol). The government also sought a deal with employers' organizations and trade unions to adopt a labour market reform that introduced incentives for open-ended contracts in exchange for reduced severance payments. This allowed Spain to join the new European single currency (the euro) in 1999.

The implementation of Aznar's economic programme saw a decrease in unemployment and the Madrid Stock Exchange reaching record highs. This buoyancy was dubbed an "economic miracle" and served as a platform for Aznar to coin the "Spain is doing well" slogan (), though these years would see the start of a property bubble with a rapid increase in real-estate prices. This period also saw the emergence of social issues such as gender-based violence (following the murder of Ana Orantes) and euthanasia (a result of the taped suicide of Ramón Sampedro). Immigration emerged as an issue, with a government's attempt to tighten conditions for illegal immigrants backfiring after the parliamentary opposition united to pass a new Aliens Law, regarded as respectful of migrants' rights. At the international level, Spain hosted the 1997 Madrid NATO summit (focused on the alliance's enlargement) and supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the context of the Kosovo War.

The 1996 general election had seen the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) being forced into opposition for the first time since 1982. Felipe González announced his intention to step down from the PSOE's leadership at the 1997 party congress to give way to generational renewal, while also rejecting a new run as prime ministerial candidate. The party, divided at the time between González's supporters (renovadores, Spanish for "renovators") and those following the discipline of PSOE deputy leader Alfonso Guerra (guerristas), elected Joaquín Almunia, a "renovator" and former labour and public administrations minister, as new party leader. A primary election in April 1998 to elect the PSOE's prime ministerial nominee saw Almunia, supported by González and prominent party "renovators", facing Josep Borrell (former public works minister), who received the backing of the guerrista faction. Borrell defeated Almunia, but the latter remained as leader in order to prevent a new party congress. This prompted a "bicephaly" (duumvirate) in which both Borrell and Almunia clashed on direction and strategy issues for months. Borrell quit as candidate in May 1999 after it transpired that two former aides were involved in a judicial investigation for tax fraud, with Almunia succeeding him without opposition.

Disappointment with election results saw United Left (IU) descend into crisis, which worsened over Julio Anguita's confrontational attitude with the PSOE. Anguita sought to prevent its Galician branch (EU–EG) from entering an electoral alliance with the Socialists ahead of the 1997 Galician election, a move criticized by Initiative for Catalonia (IC), with whom disagreements over IU's direction had been on the rise. The Democratic Party of the New Left (PDNI), constituted as an internal faction critical of Anguita's leadership, was expelled from IU's governing bodies after it broke party discipline over the issue of labour reform in June 1997. September 1997 saw the PDNI's expulsion from IU as a whole and its regional-controlled leaderships in Cantabria and Castilla–La Mancha disbanded, as well as the break up of relations with EU–EG and IC. The PDNI then sought electoral alliances with the PSOE, which materialized ahead of the 1999 local, regional and European Parliament elections. IC also entered into an alliance with PSOE's sister party in Catalonia ahead of the 1999 Catalan election. The ongoing IU crisis and health issues forced Anguita to resign from running in the next general election.

The Basque ETA group continued its activity, with its most relevant actions being the kidnapping of a Spanish prison officer, José Antonio Ortega Lara, and the assassination of PP's Ermua councillor Miguel Ángel Blanco in July 1997. Blanco's killing had a deep social impact throughout Spain, with more than six million people across the country taking to the streets over four days to demand an end to ETA violence—a spontaneous civic response dubbed the "Ermua spirit"—and even some of the group's supporters publicly condemned it. The signing of the Estella-Lizarra Declaration between the PNV and Herri Batasuna in September 1998, while opposed by the Spanish government, led ETA to announce an "indefinite ceasefire" four days later. Aznar authorized talks between his government and ETA, but a single meeting in Switzerland found the group no more willing to compromise on its core demands than it had been in the past; negotiations failed and ETA ended the truce in late 1999. In December 1999, the Civil Guard foiled a plot by ETA to bring 1,700 kg of explosives to Madrid to blow up the Picasso Tower ("the convoy of death").

PP and CiU frequently clashed over the degree of fulfillment of their signed commitments, with Catalan president Jordi Pujol persistently threatening to terminate his party's support to Aznar. Mutual interest, with the stability of Pujol's government in Catalonia also dependant on continued support from the PP in the regional parliament, helped ensure that the legislative term reached its end, with both parties confirming the renewal of their agreements in January 1998. As a result of the PP–CiU alliance, Aznar's government oversaw a large transfer of powers to regions—traffic police, job creation, vocational training, port management and fiscal policy (including taxes on personal income, wealth, property transfers, documented legal acts, inheritance, gifts and gambling)—the abolition of compulsory military service and the reform of the State's peripheral administration. Relations with the PNV worsened throughout the legislative term, particularly following the 1998 Estella declaration, ultimately leading the party to withdraw all support to the government in 1999. Growing political differences between the PP and the Aragonese Party saw the latter allying with the PSOE in the aftermath of the 1999 Aragonese election, and its break up from the PP's parliamentary group in October 1999.

Overview Under the 1978 Constitution, the Spanish were conceived as an imperfect bicameral system.. summarizing . The Congress of Deputies held greater legislative power than the Senate, having the ability to grant or withdraw confidence from a prime minister and to override Senate vetoes by an absolute majority.. Nonetheless, the Senate retained a limited number of specific functions—such as ratifying international treaties, authorizing cooperation agreements between autonomous communities, enforcing direct rule, regulating interterritorial compensation funds, and taking part in constitutional amendments and in the appointment of members to the Constitutional Court and the General Council of the Judiciary—which were not subject to override by Congress..

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