2016 Galician regional election

The 2016 Galician regional election was held on Sunday, 25 September 2016, to elect the 10th Parliament of the autonomous community of Galicia. All 75 seats in the Parliament were up for election. The election was held simultaneously with a regional election in the Basque Country.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo announced the election would be brought forward to September, after initially scheduling to hold it throughout October, following Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu's announcement of a Basque election for 25 September. Feijóo defended his decision in that it would make "no sense" to hold the election only weeks after the Basque poll, specially considering the state of political instability in Spain over the government formation process after the general election in June. The election took place in a situation in which the Spanish political landscape had undergone a major transformation within a short time, with a decrease in support for the People's Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) nationally and the emergence of new parties such as Podemos and Citizens (C's).

Feijóo's PP, with 47.6% and 41 seats, went on to secure a third consecutive absolute majority, the only one at the time in Spain after the 2015 electoral cycle. The Podemos-supported En Marea list, which had already achieved major breakthroughs in the region at the 2015 and 2016 general elections, placed narrowly ahead of the Socialists' Party of Galicia (PSdeG–PSOE) which scored the worst result of its history in a Galician regional election. Concurrently, the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) saw a slight drop in support but was able to outperform opinion poll predictions of an electoral meltdown. Finally, with 3.4%, Cs fell well below their aspirations of entering parliament, failing to secure any seat.

The results of the Basque and Galician elections, both of which saw very poor PSOE's performances after being overtaken by the Podemos-led alliances and polling at record-low levels of support, prompted dissenters within the party—led by Andalusian president Susana Díaz—to call for Pedro Sánchez's resignation as PSOE secretary-general. Sánchez's refusal to resign and his announcement of a party congress for later in the year—amid an ongoing government formation process and with the growing risk of a third general election in a row being held in Spain—led to an attempt from his critics to force his downfall, triggering a severe party crisis and a break down of party discipline which led to Sánchez's ousting on 1 October 2016, a divided PSOE abstaining in Mariano Rajoy's investiture on 29 October and a subsequent party leadership election in 2017 which would see Sánchez returning to his post of secretary-general and taking full control over the party.