List of female regional presidents in Spain



As of July 2023, 17 women have served or are serving as the president of a Spanish Autonomous Community (including three acting presidents) and none have served or are serving as presidents of the autonomous cities. Currently, five women are serving as regional presidents.

History
The first woman to act as regional president was María Antonia Martínez, who served as Acting president of Murcia for almost a month after former president Andrés Hernández Ros was forced to resign. She would be later, in 1993, elected as President of the region after once again another former president, Carlos Collado, was also forced to resign.

The first woman to assume office as regional president following a regional election was Esperanza Aguirre, who was elected on November 21, 2003 by the Assembly of Madrid, also becoming the first woman to held the position since María Antonia Martínez, and she also became the first woman to resign from her position following a corruption scandal. Since then, apart from the Region of Murcia and the Community of Madrid, eight other Autonomous Communities have elected female regional Presidents after their respective regional elections.

On 20 June 2023, Mae de la Concha became the first woman not to belong to one of the two main nationwide Spanish political parties to be appointed as regional president, although serving only in acting capacity.

To date, no woman has ever changed parties during her presidential term.

Demographics
To date, ten Autonomous Communities have elected women as regional presidents, and only Navarre and the Balearic Islands have elected women from different political parties to hold the position. Navarre was also the first community where a woman followed another woman as president, and is the first and to date only community to have three women in a row being elected as president - although the Balearic Islands have also have three women in a row as president. The Community of Madrid and Navarre are the communities that have elected the most women to the position, with three each.

As of 2021, a total of 7 autonomous communities have never had a woman as president. Those regions are: Asturias, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, Castile and León, Catalonia, Galicia and the Valencian Community and the two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Only one autonomous community (Castile and León) has never seen a major party nominate a woman in a regional election.

No women of color have been elected as regional president.

Esperanza Aguirre from the Community of Madrid has been the longest-serving female regional president, with a mandate of 8 years and 301 days while María Antonia Martínez from the Region of Murcia has been the shortest-serving female president.

From June 25 to July 1, 2015, from April 4 to May 3, 2017 and since July 14, 2023 there was a total of 5 women serving as regional presidents, making these the periods with the greatest amount of women serving at the same time.

Autonomous cities
As of January 2023, since the approval of the Statues of Autonomy for Ceuta and Melilla, no woman has held the role of president.