The Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), then in the Government of Spain, suffered from the effects of an ongoing economic crisis, internal party infighting and a massive unpopularity in the region over the party's handling of the 1980 autonomy initiative referendum and obtained just 15 seats and 13.0% of the vote, performing third behind the People's Alliance (AP) with 17.0% of the share and 17 seats.

Voting for the Parliament was on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprised all nationals over 18 years of age, registered in Andalusia and in full enjoyment of their political rights.

The 109 members of the Parliament of Andalusia were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of three percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied in each constituency.

Seats were allocated to constituencies, corresponding to the provinces of Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Seville, with each being allocated a fixed number of seats:[4][5][6] In smaller constituencies, the use of the electoral method resulted in an effective threshold based on the district magnitude and the distribution of votes among candidacies.

The Statute was published in the Official State Gazette on 11 January 1982, setting the latest possible election date for the Parliament on Thursday, 10 June 1982.

[12][13] The vote was finally determined for Sunday, 23 May,[14] with the election decree being published in the Official Gazette of the Regional Government of Andalusia on 26 March.

[36][37] The election was held on the backdrop of the 23-F trial, the attempted military coup d'etat staged on 23 February 1981 by a group of Civil Guard officers led by Antonio Tejero during Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo's investiture as Prime Minister after Suárez's resignation and whose failure incidentally led to the decisive consolidation of democratic rule in Spain.

[44][50] The UCD sought to present a renovated image after its fiasco in the 1980 referendum, its defeat in the Galician election and the party crisis in November 1981.

[86][87] PSOE leader Felipe González argued against any such alliance in Andalusia on the grounds that "the creation of antagonistic [ideological] blocs is not good",[88][89] and the party's official stance throughout the campaign was that it would govern alone,[90][91] either if it secured a majority in parliament or if it became the largest minority.

[92][93] The UCD faced a difficult task, seeking both to recover its former popularity in the region as well as to confront the growing challenge posed by the conservative AP within its traditional electorate.

[102][103] AP posed a significant threat to the UCD after its success in the Galician election as it concurrently secured financial support from the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), but was hampered by a lack of territorial implantation in Andalusia and a historically negative perception of right-of-centre parties in the region.

In March, the PSOE-led regional government launched a campaign of support to King Juan Carlos I in response to the 23-F trial,[119][120] which was received with criticism from pro-business associations over alleged "electoralism".

[121] In late April, the PSA had unsuccessfully attempted to challenge the PSOE's candidacies in all eight provinces over their use of the "Spanish Socialist Workers' Party of Andalusia" label, arguing that such a name was not registered in the interior ministry.

The table below lists opinion polling on the perceived likelihood of victory for each party in the event of a regional election taking place.

[159] While some analyses attributed the election results to the outcome of the 1980 autonomy initiative referendum—which had inflicted a severe political blow to the UCD's government in Spain—these only provided a partial justification of the major vote realignments that had taken place in Andalusia since 1979.

The PSOE capitalized on tactical voting from a number of sources: on the one hand, the PCE was mauled as a result of internal infighting, splits and growing dissatisfaction with Santiago Carrillo's leadership style,[160] hastening vote transfers to the Socialists amid a growing polarization of the vote;[161][162] on the other hand, scaremongering tactics from the CEOE's aggressive campaign, supported by both UCD and AP, were said to have had the opposite effect of bringing a large number of former UCD voters into the PSOE's fold, as the latter was on its way to occupy the ideological's middle ground of Spanish politics after the UCD's growing attempts to lurch away from the centre to appeal to its conservative base.

[163][164] Commenting on the results, the prime minister and UCD leader Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo claimed that these did not correspond to the "great effort" made by his party in the region, nor with "the political importance that the centre option continues to have in Spain".

[170][171][172] The PSA's negative results were attributed to the party having lost the narrative on the autonomy issue to the PSOE, which was seen as having staunchly defended the application of Article 151 and as having succeeded in its pledge to bring full devolution to the region, coupled with a strong disapproval of PSA leader Alejandro Rojas-Marcos's policy of rapprochement to the UCD in September 1980, when he had attempted to marginalize the Andalusian government by unilaterally agreeing on a solution to the autonomy issue with the Spanish government.

[175] Under Article 37 of the Statute, investiture processes to elect the president of the Regional Government of Andalusia required of an absolute majority—more than half the votes cast—to be obtained in the first ballot.