Susana Díaz

Early political career

Susana Díaz was elected secretary of Organisation of Socialist Youth of Andalusia in 1997. In the elections of June 1999 she was included in the list of the PSOE to the City of Seville and was elected as councillor and, Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín as mayor.

Susana Díaz studied law at the University of Seville.

President of Andalusia (2013–present)

Díaz was elected as President of Andalusia in 2013, ruling in coalition with the left-wing United Left party. Following a disagreement with the United Left, she called for early elections, which were held in 2015.

For the 2015 Andalusian parliamentary election, Díaz led a forceful campaign against Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the austerity cuts imposed by the national government. During the campaign, she also insisted that the Socialists would not form alliances with the People's Party or Podemos if the vote failed to produce a clear-cut winner.^[5]

In the election, Díaz's party retained the same number of seats as prior to the election - 47 - although the election was considered a victory for the PSOE, as is became once again the most voted party in Andalusia, since the Popular party lost 17 seats and its former coalition partner, United Left, lost 2 seats. The new parties, Podemos (far-left) and Citizens (centrist), gained 15 and 9 seats, respectively and, after a long period of three-way negotiations with both parties, Diaz came to an agreement with Citizens to reach the 55 seats needed for a majority. In early May 2015, her government received 56 votes for her investiture through an agreement with C's, thus being re-elected as regional President.