Not specifically provided legally, the workings of the post are mostly based on custom, protocol and convention. The term of "Leader of the Opposition" is only legally recognized in a Royal Decree passed in 1983 establishing the order of preference of public authorities in general official acts organized by the Crown, Government or the State Administration, acknowledging the figure of Opposition Leader but only to put it in fifteenth place in the list of precedences. By agreement of the Congress Bureau of 28 December 1982, Manuel Fraga was acknowledged as Leader of the Opposition by the PSOE government of Felipe González—himself having unofficially led opposition from 1977 to 1982. Such an agreement, further expanded on 8 February 1983, established a series of conditions for the role and awarded some prerogatives for the officeholder:
Determination of the person fulfilling the role of leader of the opposition must meet criteria of effective parliamentary number preeminence.
There must not be a formal appointment.
There is no need to raise compatibility issues for the role.
Must lack a full-blown salary, even if it may have a right to representation expenses, vehicle availability as well as the care provided for bureau members.
The Leader of the Opposition is entitled a special office in the Congress of Deputies if he or she is a member of the chamber. In addition, the officeholder usually receives much more attention from the media in parliamentary sessions and activities, such as in the yearly-held State of the Nation Debate. Established precedent has also led for the Leader of the Opposition usually sitting directly across from the Prime Minister in the Congress seating plan, so long as he or she has a seat in the Congress of Deputies. While it is not required for a Leader of the Opposition to have a seat in Congress, there have been only two occasions where the recognized officeholder did not have such a seat:
Antonio Hernández Mancha, who had a seat in the Senate.
Even with the absence of a law defining the role of the Opposition Leader, it is customary to conduct update meetings between the Prime Minister and the chairman of the largest party not within the government. However, such meetings are carried out mostly at the Prime Minister's leisure.
History
Before 1983, the figure served only as an informal reference to the "Leader of the Main Opposition Party", who at the time was Felipe González as leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the main opposition party in Spain during the country's transition to democracy until 1982. The first recognized Leader of the Opposition was Manuel Fraga, who in February 1983 was granted such a formal status by the Congress of Deputies Bureau, despite the rejection of several parties. On 1 December 1986, Manuel Fraga resigned as People's Alliance chairman and was replaced in the interim by Miguel Herrero de Miñón. While Herrero de Miñón served as interim AP leader until a party congress was held in February 1987, he was acknowledged as Opposition Leader on his own right. This lasted until he was defeated by Antonio Hernández Mancha in the 1987 AP congress, which prompted his resignation as the party's parliamentary speaker and leader on 8 February 1987. Hernández Mancha became Leader of the Opposition, but was hampered by the fact of him not being a deputy at the time. In 1998, with the People's Party in government, Josep Borrell beat PSOE Secretary GeneralJoaquín Almunia in a party primary to elect the party's candidate to Prime Minister in the subsequent general election. Almunia maintained his post as party leader whereas Borrell was named the party's spokesperson in Congress and was awarded leadership over the parliamentary party, with the later being officially referred to as the leader of the opposition. However, both Almunia and Borrell kept clashing on leadership issues for months—in a situation referred to as 'bicephaly'—until an agreement between the two parts definitely recognized Borrell the condition of opposition leader in November 1998. He would eventually resign as candidate on May 1999, awarding Almunia the sole and undisputed leadership over the party and opposition. The office came again under dispute in 2016, days after a caretaker committee under Javier Fernández had taken control over PSOE as a result of a leadership crisis in October. Podemos' Pablo Iglesias subsequently self-proclaimed himself as new opposition leader on the basis of his party's strength in Congress being close to PSOE's—67 seats to 84. During Mariano Rajoy's second investiture debate on 27 October, Spanish media and parliamentarians informally acknowledged Iglesias the role of Opposition Leader by virtue of Rajoy addressing him as his main rival during a heated dialectical exchange, coupled with PSOE's perceived inability to exercise as opposition after choosing to allow Rajoy's election. The chaos ensuing from the vacancy in the PSOE leadership led to other parties not recognizing a formal opposition leader. Pedro Sánchez nominally re-assumed the title once he was reelected as PSOE leader in June 2017, although he did not have a seat in parliament as a result of him resigning in protest to his party tolerating Rajoy's second government in October 2016.
