their high point in 1991, UV gained an unprecedented influence at the center of the Valencian political scene, because the results of this election deprived the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) of an absolute majority. The new situation allowed both opposition parties, the Partido Popular (PP), which was short of a majority, and UV to agree on a coalition government to oust the PSOE from regional rule after the latter had served 12 consecutive years in office. From 1995 through to the next regional elections in 1999, a rising PP manoeuvered to ideologically absorb its smaller government partner UV. At the same time, the party received a fatal blow when leader Vicente González Lizondo died in 1997 after suffering a heart attack while on duty at the Corts. With UV being primarily based on a reactive idea such as blaverism rather than on a consistent ideological set of policies, the loss of its founder and leader was a setback from which it has not recovered. Also during these years, a number of medium and prominent UV ranks defected from the party and joined the PP. Then, in 1999 – at the first elections after UV's support had been crucial in forming a government – the party suffered a serious blow when its vote share of 4.76% (down from 7.1%) was just short of the 5% threshold necessary to win seats at the Corts. In those elections, the PP, which had received the lion's share of former UV votes, achieved an absolute majority in the Corts, thus completing its electoral strategy for hegemony in the Valencian Community. UV's vote share further declined in the 2003 and 2007 regional elections. For the 2004 general election, the party revived its electoral pact with the Partido Popular and obtained a seat in the Spanish Senate held by José María Chiquillo. Simultaneously, UV was plagued by a number of schisms of small groups of members who left to form their own parties such as Opció Nacionalista Valenciana, Unió de Progrés per la Comunitat Valenciana, Iniciativa de Progrés per la Comunitat Valenciana, Identidad del Reino de Valencia, Renovació Valencianista or Partido Regional de la Comunidad Valenciana. Some of these, given their very small numbers, have either been readmitted in UV or, alternatively, have joined the PP. The rest went on to form Coalició Valenciana, a party assuming the staunch rightwing image which UV has tried to