1893 Spanish General Election

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 5 March (for the Congress of Deputies) and on Sunday, 19 March 1893 (for the Senate), to elect the members of the 6th Restoration Cortes. 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.

During this period, an informal system colloquially known as ''El Turno Pacífico'' () 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, 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.

In this election, the ruling Liberal Party of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta secured a large majority in the Cortes, granting him the required parliamentary support for a new "turn" in power. This came following the downfall of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo's Conservative government in December 1892 as a result of an internal split by former minister Francisco Silvela over the issue of political regeneration. The election also saw a strong performance by pro-republican parties, which went on to win in the two main Spanish cities—Madrid and Barcelona—and secure over 10% of the seats in the Congress.

Background

The 1890–1892 government led by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was characterized by the preservation of the political and legal reforms made by the previous Liberal government and a protectionist economic policy—seeing the approval of the "Cánovas tariff" to imports, aimed at protecting large Castilian farmers and Catalan textile manufacturers from the competition of American wheat and English fabrics. The government fell apart as a result of governance minister Francisco Silvela breaking out of the Conservative Party in November 1891 over a lack of political regeneration—self-evidenced in the unveiling of administrative irregularities and corruption in the City Council of Madrid—but also because of an internal strife with long-time rival Francisco Romero Robledo, who had returned to the Conservatives' fold following the failed experience of his Liberal Reformist Party. In addition, Cánovas' tenure had been plagued by peasant and anarchist rebellions—such as the Jerez uprising or an attempted plot to plant explosives in the Cortes parliament building—with labour conflicts, strikes and protests being commonplace. The government's repression of these movements was frequently regarded as disproportionately severe, which would in turn lead to an increase in anarchist violence throughout the 1890s.

Following Cánovas' resignation in December 1892, Práxedes Mateo Sagasta of the Liberal Party was tasked by Queen Regent Maria Christina with forming a new government and holding a snap election. Shortly before the election, Sagasta's government passed several decrees softening the requisites for being eligible to vote in the overseas territories of Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as a reorganization of the electoral districts in the latter that saw the creation of several multi-member constituencies.

Overview

Electoral system

The Spanish were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly perfect bicameral system. 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. Voting for the 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. 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, following a 1892 reform—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.

For the Congress of Deputies, 116 seats were elected using a partial block voting system in 34 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 326 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 five additional special districts for the 1893 election.

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:

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, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza; and the economic societies of Friends of the Country from Madrid, Barcelona, Havana, 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.

The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in both the Congress and Senate throughout the legislature's term.

Election date

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 1 and 15 February 1891, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 1 and 15 February 1896, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election. 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 5 January and 4 February 1893, with the dissolution decree setting the election dates for 5 March (for the Congress) and 19 March 1893 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 5 April.

Candidates

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.

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..

Results

Congress of Deputies

Senate

Maps

File:1893 Spanish General Election Results Map.svg, Election results by constituency (Congress)
File:1893 Spanish General Senate Election Map.svg, Election results by constituency (Senate)

Distribution by group

Notes

References

Bibliography

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{{Spanish elections

1893 elections in Spain
1893 in Spain
1893
March 1893