Selección de Líderes y candidatos a la presidencia del gobierno (1976-2016) “El jardín secreto del PSOE”

As Gallagher and Marsh (1988) pointed out, one of the cores – and monopolistic – functions of political parties is recruitment, that is, the selection of candidates. It is also the political arena where the internal conflicts among the different factions of the party are sorted out. This is why the process of selection characterizes the profile of the construction of the party according to the rules chosen for this selection. Thus, the present thesis explores the relationship between the political parties’ internal democracy and the process of selection of candidates and selection of leaders. This work is focused in the coincidence or dissidence between the selection of leader, that is, the Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the selection of candidate for the Presidency of the Spanish Government, by this same party, from 1976 up to now. In addition to investigate the reason of this differentiation, the relevant question is: under which conditions of internal democracy are performed both the leader’s selection and the candidate’s selection to the General Secretariat of the PSOE? In order to be able to address this question, the rules that the party draw from to manage the process have to be traced, mainly the PSOE’ Statutes and the regulations developed in this regard. It is also necessary to frame the historical context under which the events and political objectives of the party are being developed