1881 Spanish general election

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.[2]

1881 Spanish general election
21 August 1881 (Congress)
2 September 1881 (Senate)
All 392 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate
197 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
Registered846,961[1]
Turnout604,758 (71.4%)[1]
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Emilio Castelar
Party Liberal Conservative PPD–PD
Leader since 1880 1874 1879
Leader's seat Zamora Cieza Huesca
Last election 66 seats[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2] 302 seats[lower-alpha 2] 14 seats[lower-alpha 3]
Seats won 290 62 32
Seat change 224 240 18
Prime Minister before election

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta
Liberal

 Elected Prime Minister

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta
Liberal

Though formally competitive, the 1881 general election was held under the recently developed system of turno pacifico; in accordance with a semi-formal power-sharing arrangement brokered by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, elections—under influence by machine bosses called caciques—served as a rubber stamp for a routine handover of power initiated by the King. The 1881 election, as expected, sanctioned the pre-arranged handover from the Conservatives to the newly-created Liberal Fusionist Party. From 1881 until the end of the constitutional monarchy, the turno power-sharing plan would continue dominating the Spanish political landscape nearly uninterruptedly.

Overview

Background

The Spanish Constitution of 1876 enshrined Spain as a constitutional monarchy, awarding the King power to name senators and to revoke laws, as well as the title of commander-in-chief of the army. The King would also play a key role in the system of the turno pacífico (English: Peaceful Turn) by appointing and toppling governments and allowing the opposition to take power. Under this system, the Conservative and Liberal parties alternated in power by means of election rigging, which they achieved through the encasillado, 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.

Electoral system

The Spanish Cortes were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly perfect bicameralism. 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.[3][4] Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of censitary suffrage, which comprised national males over twenty-five, being taxpayers with a minimum quota of twenty-five pesetas per territorial contribution or fifty per industrial subsidy, as well as being enrolled in the so-called capacity census (either by criteria of Education or for professional reasons).[5]

For the Congress of Deputies, 88 seats were elected using a partial block voting in 26 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 304 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, electors could vote for up to six candidates; in those with seven seats, for up to five candidates; in those with six seats, for up to four; in those with four or five seats, for up to three candidates; and for one candidate in single-member districts. Additionally, up to ten deputies could be elected through cumulative voting in several single-member constituencies, provided that they obtained more than 10,000 votes overall. The Congress was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, with each multi-member constituency being allocated a fixed number of seats: 8 for Madrid, 5 for Barcelona and Palma, 4 for Seville and 3 for Alicante, Almería, Badajoz, Burgos, Cádiz, Cartagena, Córdoba, Granada, Jaén, Jerez de la Frontera, La Coruña, Lugo, Málaga, Murcia, Oviedo, Pamplona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santander, Tarragona, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza. The law also provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated throughout the legislature.[3][6]

For the Senate, 180 seats were indirectly elected, with electors voting for delegates instead of senators. Elected delegates—equivalent in number to one-sixth of the councillors in each municipal corporation—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 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 Royal Academies of History, Fine Arts, 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, Cuba–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 of the first class; Captain Generals of the Army and the Navy Admiral; the Patriarch of the Indies and archbishops; as well as other high-ranking state figures—and senators for life (who were appointed by the Monarch).[7][8][9]

Election date

The term of each House 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 Monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both Houses at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.[3][6][7]

Results

Congress of Deputies
← Summary of the 21 August 1881 Congress of Deputies election results →
Parties and coalitions Seats
Seats +/−
Liberal Fusionist Party (Ministerials) (PLF) 290+224
Liberal Fusionist Party (PLF)1 287+224
Villarroyist Liberals (Lib.v) 2+1
Basque Dynastics (Din.v)2 1–1
Total Liberals 290+224
Liberal Conservative Party (PLC) 62–240
Liberal Conservative Party (PLC) 60–233
Independent Moderates (Mod.i)3 2–7
Total Conservatives 62–240
Progressives and Democrats (PPD–PD) 32+18
Democratic Progressive Party (PPD) 12+4
Democratic Party (PD) 10+4
Independent Monarchist Progressives (Prog.i) 10+10
Total Republicans and Progressives 32+18
Catholic Union (UC) 2+2
Traditionalists (T) 2±0
Independent Carlists (Carl.i) 2+1
Foralist Catholics (Cató.f) 0–1
Total Carlists and Catholics 4+2
Basque Union (UV) 1±0
Independents (Indep) 3–1
Vacants 0–3
Total 392±0
Sources[10][11]
Seats (parties/coalitions)
PLF
 
 73.98%
PLC
 
 15.82%
PPD–PD
 
 8.16%
UC
 
 0.51%
T
 
 0.51%
UV
 
 0.26%
Independents
 
 0.77%
Seats (factions)
Liberals
 
 73.98%
Conservatives
 
 15.82%
Republicans
 
 8.16%
Carlists
 
 1.02%
Others
 
 1.02%

Notes
  1. Data for PC in the 1879 election.
  2. Data adjusted to account for the Basque Dynastic's alignment with the ruling coalition, alternating between the Conservatives and the Liberals from 1881 to 1914.
  3. Aggregated data for PPD and PD in the 1879 election.

Bibliography
  • Carreras de Odriozola, Albert; Tafunell Sambola, Xavier (2005) [1989]. Estadísticas históricas de España, siglos XIX-XX (PDF) (in Spanish). Volume 1 (II ed.). Bilbao: Fundación BBVA. pp. 1072–1097. ISBN 84-96515-00-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015.

References
  1. "Elecciones generales para Diputados a Cortes verificadas en los años de 1881 y 1884". ine.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 May 2019.
  2. "Royal decree declaring dissolved the Congress of Deputies and the elective part of the Senate". Royal Decree of 25 June 1881 (PDF). Gazette of Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  3. "Spanish Constitution of 1876". Act of 30 June 1876 (PDF). Gazette of Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  4. "El Senado en la historia constitucional española". senado.es (in Spanish). Senate of Spain. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
  5. Carreras de Odriozola & Tafunell Sambola 2005, pp. 1077.
  6. "Electoral Law for Deputies to Cortes of 1878". Electoral Law of 28 December 1878 (PDF). Gazette of Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  7. "Electoral Law for Senators of 1877". Electoral Law of 8 February 1877 (PDF). Gazette of Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  8. "Law setting up rules for the election of Senators in the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico of 1879". Law of 9 January 1879 (PDF). Gazette of Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  9. "Royal decree determining the number of Senators to be elected in each of the provinces for the occasion of the next election". Law of 30 June 1881 (PDF). Gazette of Madrid (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 December 2016.
  10. "Cortes election 21 August 1881". historiaelectoral.com (in Spanish). Electoral History. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  11. "Graphs and analysis: Elections in the Revolutionary Sexennium and the Restoration 1869-1923". historiaelectoral.com (in Spanish). Electoral History. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
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