Spanish General Election 2011

[Middle-aged Europe]

Strictly speaking, Spain doesn't have a prime minister either. Zapatero's official title is Presidente del Gobierno (President of the Government). However, since he's not directly elected by the people there's still no such thing like a presidential election in Spain. Only a parliamentary one.

David Cameron and François Fillon are called "Primer ministro" in Spanish btw, so they do make a distinction in title between prime minister and president of the government.

The translation of the Spanish "president"'s title into English raises an interesting point though. Why is the German Bundeskanzler translated to chancellor instead of prime minister, while the Spanish Presidente del Gobierno is translated to prime minister instead of president?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yes, Zapatero is president, not prime minister... I'd call it Parliamentarian elections... but really, here in spain we talk about "elecciones presidenciales", not "elecciones del congreso", so I think it's fair to call them presidential elections... I know the name may be wrong, but if you ask here in spain if they vote for a candidate for president or if they're electing a new congress, more or less about 90% of people will answer they are voting for their new president.
The thing is, do you think PSOE will be able to recover??

So Spain is a parliamentary democracy in name only ? Too bad, they don't know how lucky they are not to live under a presidential autocracy.

Actually, wouldn't it be a presidential election in name only... since it is in fact a parliamentary election?

[Middle-aged Europe]

There. A neutral term. If somewhat anachronistic.

I guess it's ok, because Wikipedia uses it as well (and the Spanish Wikipedia too for that matter).

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_generales_de_Espa%C3%B1a_de_2012

Spain is a parliamentary democracy, and the title given to its prime minister is "President of the government". "Prime minister" is a British term; in many other countries they use something else formally, but then say PM informally. For that matter, official title of Putin is "Chairman of the Government", but I never heard him referred to as "Chairman Putin", not even in Russian.

Not the case in Spain though. Zapatero is indeed known as "el presidente" there, since president is used as a short form for president of the government.