PEDRO Sánchez will be sworn in tomorrow (Saturday) as president, and is the third socialist leader of the country since Spain's famous Transition to Democracy.
The Transition started on the day of dictator General Franco's death – November 20, 1975 – and was complete by December 1, 1982.
It was on this date that the first socialist president of Spain, Felipe González, entered the Moncloa Palace – the official presidential residence – with 207 votes in his favour out of the Parliamentary total of 350.
He was re-elected on July 23, 1986 with his own party's 184 votes alone, and again over December 4 and 5 of 1989.
González's fourth reign started on July 9, 1993 and ended on May 4, 1996 when the PP first took up office, led by José María Aznar.
Socialist number two, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won a landslide victory in the 2004 elections, gaining office on April 16 and ending Aznar's second reign after the then PP leader fell out of favour for claiming the al-Qaeda bombs which killed 192 commuters on a Madrid train was the work of Basque separatists ETA.
Zapatero, seeing his mandate was weakening, took the decision to call a general election six months early, on November 21, 2011, ending his second term of office.
His alleged denial of the financial crisis until it had fully set in, and the public blaming him for it, was enough to paint Spain blue and give a massive majority to the PP and Mariano Rajoy.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com