2015 Gibraltar general election


The Gibraltar general election of 2015 to elect all 17 members to the 3rd Gibraltar Parliament took place on Thursday, 26 November 2015. Chief Minister Fabian Picardo announced the date of the election on Monday 19 October 2015 during a speech on the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation.

Background

Under section 38 of the Gibraltar Constitution Order 2006, the parliament must be dissolved by the Governor four years after its first meeting following the last election. Under section 37 of the Constitution, writs for a general election must be issued within thirty days of the dissolution and the general election must then be held no later than three months after the issuing of a writ. In October 2015, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo announced that the election would take place on 26 November. Following the British tradition, elections in Gibraltar conventionally take place on a Thursday.

Campaign

The UK-based UK Independence Party announced in 2014 that it was planning on fielding candidates for the first time in Gibraltar's next general election. However, ultimately they did not field any candidates. There were also no independents, the first occasion on which no independents or members of any party outside of Parliament contested the elections.

Opinion polls

A GBC public opinion poll of 17 November predicted 67% for GSLP/Libs and 33% for GSD.

Results

The results saw the first occasion on which a party won over 100,000. Both the GSLP and LPG received more votes in the elections than in any other previous general elections, with the LPG receiving the highest percentage of votes in its history. Contrastingly, the GSD saw the largest drop in its vote share in its history. Voter turnout was the lowest since 1980.
The figures above have been consolidated by party. Under the Gibraltar electoral system, all candidates are listed on the ballot paper individually. Every voter has up to 10 votes to vote for their choice from all the candidates standing. Accordingly, although there are more seats available, the main parties field 10 candidates and hope to secure 'block votes'. Thus the total of 147,495 votes comes from 16,475 voters, a 70.8% turnout of the electorate.

By candidate