The head of government is Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, since 14h March 2004, who represents the socialist PSOE party. They have an absolute majority in the House of Congress but not in the Senate.

The main opposition party is the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) led by Mariano Rajoy.

The central state power is in Madrid, but certain powers such as agriculture, tourism, health, environment and transport policy have been transferred to the individual autonomous communities whereby each has its own parliament as well as a central government representative.

This does however mean that there is a lot of bureaucracy in Spain!