1879 Spanish general election

1879 Spanish general election

← 1876 20 April 1879 (Congress) 3 May 1879 (Senate) 1881 →
All 431 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate 216 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
Registered	952,000
Turnout	621,436 (65.3%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Manuel Alonso Martínez Party Conservative Liberal Left Parliamentary Centre Leader since 1874 1872 1875 Leader's seat Madrid Zamora Castrojeriz Seats won 288 64 13 Popular vote 402,357 139,314 20,473 Percentage 64.7% 22.4% 3.3%   Fourth party   Leader Alejandro Pidal y Mon Party Moderate Leader since 1876 Leader's seat Villaviciosa Seats won 11 Popular vote 16,501 Percentage 2.7%
Prime Minister before election Arsenio Martínez Campos Conservative Prime Minister after election Arsenio Martínez Campos Conservative

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 20 April (for the Congress of Deputies) and on Saturday, 3 May 1879 (for the Senate), to elect the members of the 1st Restoration Cortes. All 431 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.

This was the first election held under the Spanish Constitution of 1876 and the new electoral law of 1878, which re-established censitary suffrage.

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.^[1] 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.^[2][3]

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, 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).^[5][6] Voting for each chamber of the Cortes was on the basis of censitary suffrage:

• For the Congress, it comprised national males over 25 years of age fulfilling one of the following criteria: being taxpayers with a minimum quota of 25 Pt per territorial contribution (paid at least one year in advance) or 50 Pt per industrial subsidy (paid at least two years in advance); having a particular position (full academics in the royal academies; members of ecclesiastical councils, including parish priests; active public employees with a yearly salary of at least 2,000 Pt; unemployed and retired public employees; general officers of the Army and Navy exempt from service, and retired military and naval chiefs and officers; reporters, chamber secretaries and court clerks of higher courts; and certified teachers); painters and sculptors awarded in national or international exhibitions; or those having at least a two-year residency in a municipality, provided that an educational or professional capacity could be proven.^[7][8][9] In Cuba and Puerto Rico, the taxpayer quota requirement was set at 125 Pt for both the territorial contribution and the industrial or trade subsidy; additionally for the Spanish West Indies, those who, having been subject to servitude, had not been freed and exempt from patronage for at least three years, were barred from being electors.^[10][11] As a result of the Basque Provinces and Navarre not paying territorial and industrial contributions in individual installments—owing to their special chartered regime—electors in those territories were instead required to prove having a capital of 2,400 Pt in real estate, crops or livestock, or 4,800 Pt in industry, commerce, profession or trade.^[12]

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, nor debtors of public funds.^[7][10]

• 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.^[13]

The Congress of Deputies was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, distributed among the provinces of Spain.^[14] 111 seats were distributed among 31 multi-member constituencies and elected using a partial block voting system: 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; and in those with four or five seats, for up to three candidates.^[15] The remaining seats—320 for the 1879 election—were allocated to single-member districts and elected using plurality voting.^[16][17] 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.^[18]

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:^[16][19]

Seats	Constituencies
8	Havana, Madrid
5	Barcelona, Palma, Santa Clara
4	Santiago de Cuba, Seville
3	Alicante, Almería, Badajoz, Burgos, Cádiz, Cartagena, Córdoba, Granada, Jaén, Jerez de la Frontera, La Coruña, Lugo, Málaga, Matanzas, Murcia, Oviedo, Pamplona, Pinar del Río, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santander, Tarragona, Valencia, Valladolid, Zaragoza

For the Senate, 180 seats were elected using an indirect, write-in, two-round majority voting system.^[20][21] 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.^[22] The provinces of Álava, Albacete, Ávila, Biscay, Canaries, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Guipúzcoa, Huelva, Logroño, Matanzas, Palencia, Pinar del Río, Puerto Príncipe, Santa Clara, Santander, Santiago de Cuba, Segovia, Soria, Teruel and Valladolid were allocated two seats each, whereas each of the remaining provinces was allocated three seats, for a total of 147.^[23][24] 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.^[24][25]

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.^[26]

The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in both the Congress and Senate throughout the legislature's term.^[27][28]

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, in the year prior to the election; nor holders of government-appointed offices, presidents of provincial deputations and members of their permanent commissions, local mayors and deputy mayors, as well as presidents of polling stations and civil, mining and forest engineers—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;^[29][30] additionally for the Spanish West Indies, those who, having been subject to servitude, had not been freed and exempt from patronage for at least ten years, were barred from running.^[31]

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:^[32][33]

• 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.^[34]

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.^[35] The previous Congress election was held on 23 January 1876, and the previous Senate election on 5 April 1877, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 23 January 1881 and 5 April 1882, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.^[36][37] 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 10 March 1879, with the dissolution decree setting the election dates for 20 April (for the Congress) and 3 May 1881 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 1 June.^[38]

← Summary of the 20 April 1879 Congress of Deputies election results →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote		Seats
		Votes[a]	%
	Liberal Conservative Party (Conservadores)	402,357	64.75	288
	Liberal Left Coalition (Izquierda Liberal)	139,314	22.42	64
	Constitutional Party (PC)			49
	Democratic Progressive Party (PPD)			9
	Democratic Party (PD)			6
	Parliamentary Centre (Centro Parlamentario)	20,473	3.29	13
	Moderate Party (Moderados)	16,501	2.66	11
	Ultramontanists (Ultramontanos)	7,965	1.28	7
	Fuerist Party of the Basque Union (PFUV)	3,861	0.62	1
	Independents (Independientes)	22,729	3.66	6
	Other candidates/blank ballots	8,236	1.33	0
	Vacants	—	—	2
Total		621,436		392
Votes cast / turnout		621,436	65.28
Abstentions		330,564	34.72
Registered voters		952,000
Sources[39][40][41][42]

Popular vote Conservative   64.75% Liberal Left   22.42% Centre   3.29% Moderate   2.66% Ultramontanist   1.28% PFUV   0.62% Independent   3.66% Others   1.33%

Seats Conservative   73.47% Liberal Left   16.33% Centre   3.32% Moderate   2.81% Ultramontanist   1.79% PFUV   0.26% Independent   1.53%

← Summary of the 20 April 1879 Congress of Deputies election results in Cuba →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote		Seats
		Votes	%
	Constitutional Union Party (Unión Constitucional)			17
	Liberal Party (Liberal)			7
Total		17,734		24
Votes cast / turnout		17,734	56.16
Abstentions		13,844	43.84
Registered voters		31,578
Sources[43]

Seats Const. Union   70.33% Liberal   29.17%

• Encasillado

• Historical archive of deputies (1810–1977). Congress of Deputies (in Spanish).
• Elections in the Revolutionary Sexennium and the Restoration. Historia Electoral.com (in Spanish).