Partido Comunista de España Unificado (PCEU, Unified Communist Party of Spain), Movimiento de Recuperación del PCE (MRPCE, Movement for the Recuperation of the PCE), Movimiento para la Recuperación y Unificación del PCE (MRUPCE, Movement for the Recuperation and Unification of the PCE), Candidatura Comunista (CC, Communist Candidature), and some minor groups unified themselves, thus creating Partido Comunista (renamed PCPE in 1986).

The PCPE is calling for a null vote, calling the election an "imperative need of the bourgeois state to urgently rebuild the power bloc that guarantees the necessary institutional stability, for the management of the oligarchic interests represented by the Ibex35, the EU and European Central Bank, in the context of the general crisis of capitalism".

During the fifth plenary session of the central committee a minority of the committee recognized Ástor García as the new secretary general of the party, however a majority continued to recognize the incumbent (since 2002) secretary general Carmelo Suárez.

This dispute was finally resolved in March 2019 when the PCPE-García relinquished its claim to the PCPE name and renamed itself to the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (Partido Comunista de los Trabajadores de España, PCTE).

[10][11] PCPE publishes Unidad y Lucha and Propuesta Comunista (a theoretical journal).