President of the Republic (Spain)

President of the Republic (Spanish: Presidente de la República) was the title of the head of state during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). The office was based on the model of the Weimar Republic, then still in power in Germany, and a compromise between the French and American presidential systems.

The "Republican Revolutionary Committee" set up by the Pact of San Sebastián (1930), considered the "central event in the opposition to the monarchy of Alfonso XIII", and headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, eventually became the first provisional government of the Second Republic, with Alcalá-Zamora named President of the Republic on 11 December 1931.

Note that Spain is one of the democracies (see President of the Government for the full list of countries) where the term 'president' must be used with care, as it does not solely refer to the head of state but to several distinct offices: President of the Republic for some historical heads of state; President of the Government for the head of the executive; President of the Senate for the speaker of the upper parliamentary chamber, etcetera. This has led to some confusion in countries where the term president refers solely to the head of state, such as the United States: several incidents involved high-profile American politicians calling the Spanish head of government "President," including George W. Bush in 2001, Jeb Bush in 2003, and most recently, Donald Trump in September 2017. With Spain a constitutional monarchy since 1975, the current monarch is head of state.