After two months of negotiations, agreements were reached with CiU, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Canarian Coalition (CC), enabling for José María Aznar to become prime minister of a centre-right minority cabinet, marking the end of 13+1⁄2 years of Socialist government.

[3][4] For the Congress of Deputies, 348 seats 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.

The prime minister had the prerogative to propose the monarch to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election, provided that no motion of no confidence was in process, no state of emergency was in force and that dissolution did not occur before one year had elapsed since the previous one.

On 9 March 1994, El Mundo reveals that officers from the Ministry of the Interior had used money from the fondos reservados (Spanish for "reserved funds"), public funds destined to finance the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and not subject to publicity, justification or external oversight,[22] to make bonus payments to high-ranking officers from the Ministry; Roldán name appeared among those accused of having received such payments.

In April, Diario 16 and El Mundo revealed that former President of Navarre Gabriel Urralburu had collected millionary commissions from construction companies in the awarding of public works during his government, with Roldán having also benefitted from it.

[23] During his time missing, Roldán sent letters admitting the illegalities he had done and accusing other Interior Ministry high-ranking members of also having benefited from the reserved funds and warning that he was willing to "pull the rug out".

In a handwritten letter sent to González himself and revealed by El Mundo daily on 17 June 1994, Roldán acknowledged having received a monthly payment of 10 million Pta from Rafael Vera, State Security Director until early 1994.

Already in February 1992, it had been revealed that Rubio—then Governor of the Bank of Spain—and former Economy Minister Miguel Boyer had concealed from the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) that both of them possessed stock shares in Ibercorp and used them to amass a fortune.

However, the new revelations in 1994, which resulted in his criminal prosecution, put Felipe González and former Economy Minister Carlos Solchaga—who had backed Rubio in 1992, believing his claims of innocence, and were also ultimately responsible for his naming to the post—in a delicate political situation.

[26][27][28] In 1991, two policemen, José Amedo and Michel Domínguez, had been convicted for participating in the Liberation Antiterrorist Groups (GAL), death squads involved in a 'dirty war' against ETA in the 1983–87 period and thought to be secretly financed by the Socialist government.

Initially thought to be acting independently, they confessed on 16 December 1994 to judge Baltasar Garzón that a number of former police and Interior Ministry officers were also involved in the GAL, showing evidence supporting their claims.

Among those were former Interior Minister José Barrionuevo (1982–88), State Security Directors Julián Sancristóbal (1984–86) and Rafael Vera (1986–94), as well as former Secretary-General of the PSOE in Biscay Ricardo García Damborenea and a number of police officers accused of murder and embezzlement of public funds.

Throughout early 1995, those accused except for Barrionuevo were arrested and court-questioned, leading to the 'GAL case' being re-opened by the Spanish National Court on 20 February in order to clarify whether the GAL were financed with money from the reserved funds.

Barrionuevo accused Garzón, then instructing the case and who had contested the 1993 general election within the PSOE electoral lists, to be acting motivated by personal revenge against the party after political differences leading to his resignation as deputy in May 1994.

Other general causes of ineligibility were imposed on members of the Spanish royal family; the president and members of the Constitutional Court, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Supreme Court, the Council of State, the Court of Auditors and the Economic and Social Council; the Ombudsman; the State's Attorney General; high-ranking members—undersecretaries, secretaries-general, directors-general and chiefs of staff—of Spanish government departments, the Prime Minister's Office, government delegations, the Social Security and other government agencies; heads of diplomatic missions in foreign states or international organizations; judges and public prosecutors in active service; Armed Forces and police corps personnel in active service; members of electoral commissions; the chair of RTVE; the director of the Electoral Register Office; the governor and deputy governor of the Bank of Spain; the chairs of the Official Credit Institute and other official credit institutions; and members of the Nuclear Safety Council; as well as a number of territorial-level officers in the aforementioned government bodies and institutions being barred from running, during their tenure of office, in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction.

[34][35] Disqualification provisions for the Cortes Generales extended to any employee of a foreign state and to members of regional governments, as well as the impossibility of running simultaneously as candidate for both the Congress and Senate.