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Since Castilla-La Mancha reached its political autonomy 35 years ago, nine regional elections have been held for choosing the representatives for the regional Parliament. The electoral system has been changed in four occasions, the most recent three in the last two legislatures. This paper aims to identify the effects of the different components of the electoral system on issues such as the value of the vote, its proportionality, the regional party sub-system, or regional political pluralism. Also, the paper will examine the arguments set forth by parties defending the reforms and the real goals that may have been behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general elections of December 2015 supposed the opening of a new political cycle in Spain. The high electoral volatility, the increase of party fragmentation (with the strong emergence of two new political forces) and the fall in the percentage of votes of the two main groups, are symptoms of change in the party system. This paper describes the Spanish elections from 1977 to 2016 and aims to delimit electoral cycles over almost forty years of democracy. For this purpose, describes the electoral results, the type of party system (focusing on electoral volatility levels, ideological polarization, party fragmentation and electoral competitiveness), the governments formation and the political parties with representation in the Congress of Deputies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]