This paper presents an efficient approach for solving the optimal reactive power dispatch problem. It is a non-linear constrained optimization problem where two distinct objective functions are considered. The proposed approach is based on the hybridization of the particle swarm optimization method and the tabu-search technique. This hybrid approach is used to find control variable settings (i.e., generation bus voltages, transformer taps and shunt capacitor sizes) which minimize transmission active power losses and load bus voltage deviations. To validate the proposed hybrid method, the IEEE 30-bus system is considered for 12 and 19 control variables. The obtained results are compared with those obtained by particle swarm optimization and a tabu-search without hybridization and with other evolutionary algorithms reported in the literature.