The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) scored a landslide victory by securing a comfortable absolute majority of 26 out of 45 seats, with 52% of the vote.

[1] The former ruling party of Spain, the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), had chosen to dissolve itself in February 1983 and did not contest the election as a result.

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

The 45 members of the General Junta of the Principality of Asturias were elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of five percent of valid votes—which included blank ballots—being applied regionally.

[15] Starting in October 1977, deputies and senators from the four parties having won parliamentary representation in Asturias at the 1977 Spanish general election—PSOE, UCD, AP and PCE—initiated procedures for requesting the central government a pre-autonomic regime for the region,[16][17] which was granted in 1978 through the establishment of a Regional Council with Socialist Rafael Fernández at its head and members from the aforementioned four political parties.

[34][35][36] While as president, Fernández maintained a moderate profile aimed at broadening the PSOE's support ahead of the incoming 1982 and 1983 elections, with the Principality having become both an experiment on the Socialists's government capabilities at large as well as an electoral stronghold for the party.

[59][60][61] By the time the UCD's executive had voted for the liquidation of the party's mounting debts and its subsequent dissolution on 18 February 1983,[2][62][63] electoral alliances with the AP–PDP coalition had only been agreed in some provinces of the Basque Country and Galicia.

[71][72][73] The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) chose not to field incumbent president Rafael Fernández as their leading candidate, after several clashes between Fernández and the party's regional leadership,[74] instead proposing Pedro de Silva, secretary general of the Socialist Parliamentary Group in the Congress of Deputies up until then, for the post of regional premier.

Under Article 32 of the Statute, investiture processes to elect the president of the Principality of Asturias required of an absolute majority—more than half the votes cast—to be obtained in the first ballot.

[4] On 17 June 1983, Pedro de Silva, the candidate proposed by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), was elected as new president of the Principality with an absolute majority of votes.