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All 447 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate 224 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1896 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 12 April (for the Congress of Deputies) [a] and on Sunday, 26 April 1896 (for the Senate), to elect the 7th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 445 seats in the Congress of Deputies (plus two special districts) were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
During this period, an informal system colloquially known as El Turno Pacífico (English: The Peaceful Turn) was operated by the two main parties in the country—the Conservatives and the Liberals—to determine in advance the result of the election, often through the encasillado , caciquism and election rigging, ensuring that both parties would have alternating periods in power. As a result, elections were often neither truly free nor fair, though they could be more competitive in the country's urban centres where this system was weaker.
The previous Liberal government of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta had resigned in March 1895, following the outbreak of revolution in Cuba and a period dominated by social conflict and war in Morocco. Conservative leader Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was tasked to form a new government, but the general election was delayed by over a year until their feasibility in Cuba could be ensured. The election resulted in a large majority for the Conservatives amidst the boycott of most pro-republican parties.
This would be the last election to be contested by Cánovas, as he would be assassinated while in office in August 1897 by an anarchist, Michele Angiolillo.
The Spanish Cortes were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly perfect bicameral system. [4] Both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate had legislative, control and budgetary functions, sharing equal powers except for laws on contributions or public credit, where the Congress had preeminence, and judicial matters, where preeminence was vested in the Senate. [5] [6] Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, which comprised all national males over 25 years of age, having at least a two-year residency in a municipality and in full enjoyment of their civil rights. [7] [8] [9] In Cuba and Puerto Rico voting was on the basis of censitary suffrage, comprising males of age fulfilling one of the following criteria: being taxpayers with a minimum quota—of $5 in Cuba and $10 in Puerto Rico—per territorial contribution or per industrial or trade subsidy (paid at the time of registering for voting); having a particular position (royal academy numerary members; ecclesiastic individuals; active, unemployed or retired public employees; military personnel; widely recognized painters and sculptors; public teachers; etc.); or those meeting the two-year residency requirement, provided that an educational or professional capacity could be proven. [10] [11] [12] [13]
For the Congress of Deputies, 116 seats were elected using a partial block voting system in 34 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 329 being elected under a one-round first-past-the-post system in single-member districts. Candidates winning a plurality in each constituency were elected. In constituencies electing eight seats or more, electors could vote for no more than three candidates less than the number of seats to be allocated; in those with more than four seats and up to eight, for no more than two less; in those with more than one seat and up to four, for no more than one less; and for one candidate in single-member districts. The Congress was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, with each multi-member constituency being allocated a fixed number of seats. Additionally, literary universities, economic societies of Friends of the Country and officially organized chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture were entitled to one seat per each 5,000 registered voters that they comprised, which resulted in two additional special districts for the 1896 election. [14] [15] [16]
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats: [17] [18] [19]
Seats | Constituencies |
---|---|
8 | Madrid |
6 | Havana |
5 | Barcelona, Palma |
4 | Santa Clara, Seville |
3 | Alicante, Almería, Badajoz, Burgos, Cádiz, Cartagena, Córdoba, Granada, Jaén, Jerez de la Frontera, La Coruña, Lugo, Málaga, Matanzas, Mayagüez, Murcia, Oviedo, Pamplona, Pinar del Río, Ponce, San Juan Bautista, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santander, Santiago de Cuba, Tarragona, Valencia, Valladolid, Zaragoza |
For the Senate, 180 seats were indirectly elected by the local councils and major taxpayers, with electors voting for delegates instead of senators. Elected delegates—equivalent in number to one-sixth of the councillors in each local council—would then vote for senators using a write-in, two-round majority voting system. The provinces of Álava, Albacete, Ávila, Biscay, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Guipúzcoa, Huelva, Logroño, Matanzas, Palencia, Pinar del Río, Puerto Príncipe, Santa Clara, Santander, Santiago de Cuba, Segovia, Soria, Teruel, Valladolid and Zamora were allocated two seats each, whereas each of the remaining provinces was allocated three seats, for a total of 147. The remaining 33 were allocated to special districts comprising a number of institutions, electing one seat each—the archdioceses of Burgos, Granada, Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Cuba, Seville, Tarragona, Toledo, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza; the Royal Spanish Academy; the other royal academies (History; Fine Arts of San Fernando; Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; Moral and Political Sciences and Medicine); the universities of Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Havana, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza; and the economic societies of Friends of the Country from Madrid, Barcelona, Havana–Puerto Rico, León, Seville and Valencia. An additional 180 seats comprised senators in their own right—the monarch's offspring and the heir apparent once coming of age; Grandees of Spain with an annual income of at least 60,000 Pt (from their own real estate or from rights that enjoy the same legal consideration); Captain Generals of the Army and the Navy Admiral; the Patriarch of the Indies and archbishops; and the presidents of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme War Council and the Supreme Council of the Navy, after two years of service—as well as senators for life appointed directly by the monarch. [20] [21] [22] [23]
The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in both the Congress and Senate throughout the legislature's term. [24] [25]
The term of each chamber of the Cortes—the Congress and one-half of the elective part of the Senate—expired five years from the date of their previous election, unless they were dissolved earlier. The previous Congress and Senate elections were held on 5 and 19 March 1893, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 5 and 19 March 1898, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election. [26] [27] There was no constitutional requirement for concurrent elections to the Congress and the Senate, nor for the elective part of the Senate to be renewed in its entirety except in the case that a full dissolution was agreed by the monarch. Still, there was only one case of a separate election (for the Senate in 1877) and no half-Senate elections taking place under the 1876 Constitution.
The Cortes were officially dissolved on 28 February 1896, with the dissolution decree setting the election dates for 12 April (for the Congress) and 26 April 1893 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 11 May. [28]
The Spanish Constitution of 1876 enshrined Spain as a constitutional monarchy , awarding the monarch the right of legislative initiative together with the bicameral Cortes; the capacity to veto laws passed by the legislative body; the power to appoint senators and government ministers; as well as the title of commander-in-chief of the army and navy. The monarch would play a key role in the system of el turno pacífico (English: the Peaceful Turn) by appointing and dismissing governments and allowing the opposition to take power. Under this informal system, the major political parties at the time, the Conservatives and the Liberals —characterized as elite parties with loose structures dominated by internal factions, each led by powerful individuals—alternated in power by means of election rigging , which they achieved through the encasillado , assignating the seats in the general elections before they were held by using the links between the Ministry of Governance , the provincial civil governors and the local bosses ( caciques ) to ensure victory and exclude minor parties from the power sharing. [29] [30] The result was "a liberal system without democracy". [31]
The 1892–1895 period of Liberal government under Práxedes Mateo Sagasta had been dominated by the situation in Cuba and Puerto Rico—with attempts from Overseas minister Antonio Maura to grant limited autonomy to the islands failing to materialize—as well as the First Melillan campaign against the Sultanate of Morocco and the persistence of social conflict (with notable incidents such as an attempted 1893 attack on Catalonia Captain General Arsenio Martínez-Campos leading to the approval of a Law of repression of anarchism in 1894). [32] [33] This period also saw the Gamazada , a popular uproar in Navarre to a plan by finance minister Germán Gamazo to suppress the fueros —established in the Compromise Act of 1841—that was thwarted by Gamazo's resignation in 1894. [34]
The outbreak of revolution in Cuba in February 1895 and the subsequent Tenientada—the assault and looting of two Madrid newspapers (El Resumen and El Globo ) by groups of civilians and military personnel who were upset about published opinions on an alleged reluctancy from military officers to embark to Cuba—caused the downfall of Sagasta's cabinet. [35] In March 1895, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo of the Conservative Party was entrusted with the formation of a new government, but electoral preparations were delayed until newly-appointed Cuba governor Valeriano Weyler could ensure the feasibility of holding elections in the colony. [13]
For the Congress, Spanish citizens of age and with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not sentenced to perpetual disqualification from political rights or public offices by a final court's decision, or to afflictive penalties if no legal rehabilitation had been obtained at least two years in advance of the election, or to other criminal penalties if the serving of the sentence could not be proven before taking the office of deputy. Other causes of ineligibility were imposed on those physically or morally incapacitated; bankrupt or insolvent persons who had not paid out their debts; and contractors of public works or services; as well as a number of territorial-level officers in government bodies and institutions being barred from running, during their tenure of office, in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction. [36] [37]
For the Senate, eligibility was limited to those entitled to be appointed as senators in their own right or those who had belonged to one of the following categories: presidents of the Senate and the Congress of Deputies; deputies who had belonged to at least three different congresses or serving for at least eight terms; government ministers; other Grandees of Spain; Army's lieutenant generals and Navy's vice admirals, two years after their appointment; ambassadors after two years of service and plenipotentiary ministers after four; other members and prosecutors of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme War Council and the Supreme Council of the Navy, and the Dean of the Court of Military Orders, after two years of service; presidents and directors of the Royal Spanish Academy and the other royal academies (History; Fine Arts of San Fernando; Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; Moral and Political Sciences and Medicine); full academics of the aforementioned corporations occupying the first half of the seniority scale in their corps, first-class general inspectors of the corps of Civil Engineers, Mines and Forests, full-time university professors with at least four years of seniority in their category and practice (and provided that those had an annual income of at least 7,500 Pt from their own property, salaries from jobs that cannot be lost except for legally proven cause, or from retirement, withdrawal or termination); as well as those who had an annual income of 20,000 Pt or were taxpayers with a minimum quota of 4,000 Pt in direct contributions at least two years in advance, as long as they were of the Spanish nobility, had been previously deputies, provincial deputies or mayors in provincial capitals or towns over 20,000 inhabitants, as well as those who had ever held the office of senator before the promulgation of the 1876 Constitution. [38] [39]
Parties and alliances | Popular vote | Seats | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Votes | % | |||
Liberal Conservative Party (PLC) | 307 | |||
Liberal Party (PL) | 111 | |||
Conservative Union (Silvelist) (UC) | 12 | |||
Traditionalist Communion (Carlist) (CT) | 10 | |||
Integrist Party (PI) | 1 | |||
Independents (INDEP) | 6 | |||
Total | 447 | |||
Votes cast / turnout | ||||
Abstentions | ||||
Registered voters | ||||
Sources [a] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] |
Parties and alliances | Seats | |
---|---|---|
Liberal Conservative Party (PLC) | 118 | |
Liberal Party (PL) | 43 | |
Conservative Union (Silvelist) (UC) | 2 | |
Traditionalist Communion (Carlist) (CT) | 2 | |
Independents (INDEP) | 5 | |
Archbishops (ARCH) | 10 | |
Total elective seats | 180 | |
Sources [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] |
Group | Parties and alliances | C | S | Total | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PLC | Liberal Conservative Party (PLC) | 279 | 104 | 425 | ||
Constitutional Union of Cuba (UCC) | 17 | 10 | ||||
Unconditional Spanish Party (PIE) | 10 | 2 | ||||
Basque Dynastics (Urquijist) (DV) | 1 | 2 | ||||
PL | Liberal Party (PL) | 95 | 39 | 154 | ||
Constitutional Union of Cuba (UCC) | 11 | 3 | ||||
Unconditional Spanish Party (PIE) | 5 | 1 | ||||
UC | Conservative Union (Silvelist) (UC) | 11 | 2 | 14 | ||
Constitutional Union of Cuba (UCC) | 1 | 0 | ||||
CT | Traditionalist Communion (Carlist) (CT) | 10 | 2 | 12 | ||
PI | Integrist Party (PI) | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||
INDEP | Independent Possibilists (P.IND) | 3 | 1 | 11 | ||
Independents (INDEP) | 1 | 2 | ||||
Autonomist Liberal Party (PLA) | 0 | 2 | ||||
Constitutional Union of Cuba (UCC) | 1 | 0 | ||||
Independent Catholics (CAT) | 1 | 0 | ||||
ARCH | Archbishops (ARCH) | 0 | 10 | 10 | ||
Total | 447 | 180 | 627 |
The 1923 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 29 April and on Sunday, 13 May 1923, to elect the 19th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1920 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 19 December 1920 and on Sunday, 2 January 1921, to elect the 19th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1919 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 1 June and on Sunday, 15 June 1919, to elect the 18th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1918 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 24 February and on Sunday, 10 March 1918, to elect the 17th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1916 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 9 April and on Sunday, 23 April 1916, to elect the 16th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1914 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 8 March and on Sunday, 22 March 1914, to elect the 15th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 408 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1910 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 8 May and on Sunday, 22 May 1910, to elect the 14th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 404 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1907 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 21 April and on Sunday, 5 May 1907, to elect the 13th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 404 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1905 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 10 September and on Sunday, 24 September 1905, to elect the 12th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 404 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1903 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 26 April and on Sunday, 10 May 1903, to elect the 11th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 403 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1901 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 19 May and on Sunday, 2 June 1901, to elect the 10th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 402 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1899 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 16 April and on Sunday, 30 April 1899, to elect the 9th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 401 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1898 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 27 March and on Sunday, 10 April 1898, to elect the 8th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 445 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1893 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 5 March and on Sunday, 19 March 1893, to elect the 6th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 442 seats in the Congress of Deputies—plus five special districts—were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1891 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 1 February and on Sunday, 15 February 1891, to elect the 5th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 442 seats in the Congress of Deputies—plus four special districts—were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate. Following a 1890 reform of the electoral law that saw a change from the previous censitary suffrage to a universal manhood suffrage, the electorate was extended to about 27.3% of the country's population.
The 1886 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 4 April and on Sunday, 25 April 1886, to elect the 4th Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 434 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate. The electorate comprised about 4.6% of the country's population.
The 1884 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 27 April and on Thursday, 8 May 1884, to elect the 3rd Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 433 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1881 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 21 August and on Friday, 2 September 1881, to elect the 2nd Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 392 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1879 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 20 April and on Saturday, 3 May 1879, to elect the 1st Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 392 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
The 1876 Spanish general election was held from Thursday, 20 January to Sunday, 23 January 1876 and from Tuesday, 1 February to Friday, 4 February 1876, to elect the Constituent Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 406 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as all 196 seats in the Senate. In the Canary Islands the election was held from 28 to 31 January, and in Puerto Rico it was held from 15 to 18 February. On 5 April 1877, another election to the Senate was held.