1898 Spanish general election

1898 Spanish general election

← 1896 27 March 1898 (Congress) 10 April 1898 (Senate)[a] 1899 →
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
First party Second party Third party   Leader Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Francisco Silvela Nicolás Salmerón Party Liberal Conservative (Silvelist) Republican Leader since 1880 1892 1898 Leader's seat Logroño Piedrahíta Gracia Last election 111 (C) · 43 (S) 12 (C) · 2 (S) 4 (C) · 3 (S) Seats won 324 (C) · 121 (S) 79 (C) · 36 (S) 15 (C) · 1 (S) Seat change 213 (C) · 78 (S) 65 (C) · 34 (S) 11 (C) · 2 (S)   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Carlos O'Donnell Francisco Romero Robledo Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa Party Tetuanist Liberal Reformist Carlist Leader since 1898 1898 1891 Leader's seat Senator (for life) Antequera — Last election 307 (C) · 117 (S)[b] Did not contest 10 (C) · 2 (S) Seats won 7 (C) · 7 (S) 6 (C) · 1 (S) 6 (C) · 0 (S) Seat change 300 (C) · 110 (S) 6 (C) · 1 (S) 4 (C) · 2 (S)
Election results by constituency (Congress)
Prime Minister before election Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Liberal Prime Minister after election Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Liberal

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 27 March (for the Congress of Deputies) and on Sunday, 10 April 1898 (for the Senate),^[a] to elect the members of the 8th Restoration Cortes. 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.

Since the Pact of El Pardo, an informal system known as turno or turnismo was operated by the monarchy of Spain and the country's two main parties—the Conservatives and the Liberals—to determine in advance the outcome of elections by means of electoral fraud, often achieved through the territorial clientelistic networks of local bosses (the caciques), ensuring that both parties would have rotating 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 caciquism was weaker.

The election was called amid a period of political unstability, following the assassination in August 1897 of Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo by Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo, and the brief premiership of Marcelo Azcárraga. Respecting the turno system, Queen Regent Maria Christina appointed a new government under Liberal leader Práxedes Mateo Sagasta on 4 October 1897, tasking them with the formation of a new majority. In the wake of Cánovas's death, the Conservative Party was left in disarray, split between Francisco Silvela's Conservative Union, a faction led by Carlos O'Donnell, Duke of Tetuán, and Francisco Romero Robledo's re-established Liberal Reformist Party. The result of the election was a Liberal majority in both chambers.

This would be the last Spanish general election to be held in Cuba and Puerto Rico, as the Spanish–American War, which would start only a few weeks after the election, would lead to the loss of all Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Following the Bourbon Restoration in 1874, the Spanish Constitution of 1876 enshrined Spain as a semi-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 members (including the prime minister); as well as the title of commander-in-chief of the armed forces.^[2] The monarch would play a key role in the turno system by appointing and dismissing governments, which would then organize elections to provide themselves with a parliamentary majority. This informal system allowed the two major "dynastic" political parties at the time, the Conservatives and the Liberals—characterized as oligarchic, elite parties with loose structures dominated by internal factions, each led by powerful individuals—to alternate in power by means of electoral fraud (pucherazo). This was achieved by assigning candidates to districts before the elections were held (encasillado), then arrange their victory through the links between the Ministry of Governance and the territorial clientelistic networks of provincial governors and local bosses (the caciques), excluding minor parties from the power sharing.^[3][4]

The last government of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (1895–1897) had seen an increase in anarchist activity, with the Barcelona Corpus Christi procession bombing on 7 June 1896 and its consequences dominating the political landscape. Those suspect and arrested for the bombing were tried in the military Montjuïc Castle (the Montjuïc trials), amid accusations of forced confessions through torture.^[5] A new anti-terrorist law was approved that year and applied retroactively against the acquitted prisoners, who were deported out of the country.^[6] Cánovas' role in the trials and the political repression following the bombings would ultimately lead to his assassination on 8 August 1897 by anarchist Michele Angiolillo.^[7] This period also saw the breakout of the Philippine Revolution in August 1896.

Following Cánovas' death, Marcelo Azcárraga took the role of prime minister in the interim until power was handed by Queen Regent Maria Christina to Práxedes Mateo Sagasta and his Liberal Party in October that year. This episode threw the Conservative Party into disarray: most party members acknowledged Francisco Silvela as new leader and joined his Conservative Union; others—considering themselves as the true heirs of Cánovas' ideas—joined the Duke of Tetuán's faction; finally, Francisco Romero Robledo re-established his Liberal Reformist Party and broke away in opposition to Silvela's leadership.^[8]

The Spanish Cortes were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly perfect bicameral system.^[9] 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, the first reading of which corresponded to Congress, and impeachment processes against government ministers, in which each chamber had separate powers of indictment (Congress) and trial (Senate).^[10][11] Voting for each chamber of the Cortes was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage and censitary suffrage, respectively:

• For the Congress, it 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.^[12][13][14] Following a 1897 reform, universal manhood suffrage was also extended to Cuba and Puerto Rico.^[15][16][17]

Voters were required to not being sentenced—by a final court ruling—to perpetual disqualification from political rights or public offices, to afflictive penalties not legally rehabilitated at least two years in advance, nor to other criminal penalties that remained unserved at the time of the election; neither being legally incapacitated, bankrupt, insolvent, debtors of public funds, nor homeless.^[12][15]

• For the Senate, it comprised archbishops and bishops (in the ecclesiastical councils); full academics (in the royal academies); rectors, full professors, enrolled doctors, directors of secondary education institutes and heads of special schools in their respective territories (in the universities); members with at least a three-year-old membership (in the economic societies of Friends of the Country); major taxpayers and Spanish citizens of age, being householders residing in Spain and in full enjoyment of their political and civil rights (for delegates in the local councils); and provincial deputies.^[18]

The Congress of Deputies was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, distributed among the provinces of Spain.^[19] 116 seats were distributed among 34 multi-member constituencies and elected using a partial block voting system: 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; and in those with more than one seat and up to four, for no more than one less.^[20] The remaining seats—329 for the 1898 election—were allocated to single-member districts and elected using plurality voting.^[21][22] 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.^[23]

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:^[21][24][25]

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 elected using an indirect, write-in, two-round majority voting system.^[26][27] Voters in the economic societies, the local councils and major taxpayers elected delegates—equivalent in number to one per each 50 members (in each economic society) or to one-sixth of the councillors (in each local council), with an initial minimum of one—who, together with other voting-able electors, would in turn vote for senators.^[28] 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.^[29][30][31] 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 six oldest royal academies (the Royal Spanish; 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.^[30][32]

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 admirals of the Navy; the Patriarch of the Indies and archbishops; and the presidents of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme Council of War and Navy, after two years of service—as well as senators for life appointed directly by the monarch.^[33]

The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in both the Congress and Senate throughout the legislature's term.^[34][35]

For the Congress, Spanish citizens of age, of secular status, in full enjoyment of their civil rights and with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not contractors of public works or services, within the territorial scope of their contracts; nor holders of government-appointed offices and presidents or members of provincial deputations—during their tenure of office and up to one year after their dismissal—in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction, except for government ministers and civil servants in the Central Administration.^[36][37][38] A number of other positions were exempt from ineligibility, provided that no more than 40 deputies benefitted from these:^[39][40]

• Civil, military and judicial positions with a permanent residence in Madrid and a yearly public salary of at least 12,500 Pt;
• The holders of a number of positions: the president, prosecutors and chamber presidents of the territorial court of Madrid; the rector and full professors of the Central University of Madrid; inspectors of engineers; and general officers of the Army and Navy based in Madrid.

For the Senate, eligibility was limited to Spanish citizens over 35 years of age and not subject to criminal prosecution, disfranchisement nor asset seizure, provided that they were entitled to be appointed as senators in their own right or belonged or had belonged to one of the following categories:^[41][42]

• Those who had ever served as senators before the promulgation of the 1876 Constitution; and deputies having served in at least three different congresses or eight terms;
• The holders of a number of positions: presidents of the Senate and the Congress; government ministers; bishops; grandees of Spain not eligible as senators in their own right; and presidents and directors of the royal academies;
• Provided an annual income of at least 7,500 Pt from either their own property, salaries from jobs that cannot be lost except for legally proven cause, or from retirement, withdrawal or termination: full academics of the aforementioned corporations on the first half of the seniority scale in their corps; first-class inspectors general of the corps of civil, mining and forest engineers; and full professors with at least four years of seniority in their category and practice;
• Provided two prior years of service: Army's lieutenant generals and Navy's vice admirals; and other members and prosecutors of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme Council of War and Navy, and the dean of the Court of Military Orders;
• Ambassadors after two years of service and plenipotentiaries after four;
• Those with 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, provided that they either belonged to the Spanish nobility, had been previously deputies, provincial deputies or mayors in provincial capitals or towns over 20,000 inhabitants.

Other causes of ineligibility for the Senate were imposed on territorial-level officers in government bodies and institutions—during their tenure of office and up to three months after their dismissal—in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction; contractors of public works or services; tax collectors and their guarantors; debtors of the State; deputies; local councillors (except those in Madrid); and provincial deputies for their respective provinces.^[43]

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.^[44] The previous Congress and Senate elections were held on 12 and 26 April 1896, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 12 and 26 April 1901, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.^[45][46] 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 26 February 1898, with the dissolution decree setting the election dates for 27 March (for the Congress) and 10 April 1898 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 25 April.^[47]

← Summary of the 27 March 1898 Congress of Deputies election results →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote		Seats
		Votes	%
	Liberal Party (PL)			324
	Conservative Union (UC)			79
	Republican Fusion (FR)			15
	Tetuanist Conservatives (T)			7
	Liberal Reformist Party (PLR)			6
	Traditionalist Communion (Carlist) (CT)			6
	Independents (INDEP)			10
Total				447
Votes cast / turnout
Abstentions
Registered voters
Sources[48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]

Seats PL   72.48% UC   17.67% FR   3.36% T   1.57% PLR   1.34% CT   1.34% INDEP   2.24%

← Summary of the 10 April 1898 Senate of Spain election results →

Parties and alliances		Seats
	Liberal Party (PL)	121
	Conservative Union (UC)	36
	Tetuanist Conservatives (T)	7
	Republican Fusion (FR)	1
	Liberal Reformist Party (PLR)	1
	Integrist Party (PI)	1
	Independents (INDEP)	3
	Archbishops (ARCH)	10
Total elective seats		180
Sources[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]

Seats PL   67.22% UC   20.00% T   3.89% FR   0.56% PLR   0.56% PI   0.56% INDEP   1.67% ARCH   5.56%

• 
  Election results by constituency (Congress).

Summary of political group distribution in the 8th Restoration Cortes (1898–1899)

Group		Parties and alliances		C	S	Total
	PL		Liberal Party (PL)	285	108	445
			Autonomist Liberal Party (PLA)	21	5
			Unconditional Spanish Party (PIE)	10	1
			Puerto Rican Autonomist Party (PAP)	6	1
			Constitutional Union of Cuba (UCC)	1	5
			Basque Dynastics (Urquijist) (DV)	1	1
	UC		Conservative Union (UC)	74	33	115
			Constitutional Union of Cuba (UCC)	5	2
			Unconditional Spanish Party (PIE)	0	1
	FR		National Republican Party (PRN)	9	1	16
			Independent Possibilists (P.IND)	3	0
			Centralist Republican Party (PRC)	2	0
			Blasquist Republicans (RB)	1	0
	T		Liberal Conservative Party (PLC)	7	7	14
	PLR		Liberal Reformist Party (PLR)	6	1	7
	CT		Traditionalist Communion (Carlist) (CT)	6	0	6
	PI		Integrist Party (PI)	0	1	1
	INDEP		Independents (INDEP)	9	2	13
			Independent Catholics (CAT)	1	0
			Basque Dynastics (Urquijist) (DV)	0	1
	ARCH		Archbishops (ARCH)	0	10	10
Total				447	180	627

• 1898 Puerto Rican general election