1920 Spanish general election

1920 Spanish general election

19 December 1920 (Congress) 2 January 1921 (Senate)
All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate 205 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
First party Second party Third party   Leader Eduardo Dato Manuel García Prieto Count of Romanones Party Conservative Liberal Democratic Romanonists Leader since 1913 1913 1912 Leader's seat Vitoria Senator for life Guadalajara Last election 94 seats 52 seats 46 seats Seats won 174 45 34 Seat change 80 7 12   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Santiago Alba Antonio Maura Juan de la Cierva Party Liberal Left Maurist Ciervists Leader since 1917 1913 1914 Leader's seat Albuñol Palma Mula Last election 30 seats 68 seats 32 seats Seats won 28 24 23 Seat change 2 44 9
Prime Minister before election Eduardo Dato Conservative Prime Minister after election Eduardo Dato Conservative

The 1920 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 19 December 1920 and on Sunday, 2 January 1921, to elect the 19th Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.

Overview

Background

The Spanish Constitution of 1876 enshrined Spain as a constitutional monarchy, awarding the monarch power to name senators and to revoke laws, as well as the title of commander-in-chief of the army. The monarch would also 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 system, the major political parties of the time, the conservatives and the liberals—characterized as elite parties with loose structures and dominated by internal factions led by powerful individuals—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. Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, which comprised all national males over twenty-five, having at least a two-year residency in a municipality and in full enjoyment of their civil rights. Voting was compulsory except for those older than 70, the clergy, first instance judges and public notaries.

For the Congress of Deputies, 173 seats were elected using a partial block voting in 44 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 236 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 ten seats or more, electors could vote for no more than four candidates less than the number of seats to be allocated; in those with more than eight seats and up to ten, for no more than three less; 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. Additionally, in single-member districts where candidates ran unopposed, as well as in multi-member districts where the number of candidates was equal or less than the number of seats to be filled, candidates were to be automatically proclaimed without an election. The Congress was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, with each multi-member constituency being allocated a fixed number of seats: 13 for Barcelona and Madrid, 6 for Valencia, 5 for La Coruña, Palma, Santander and Seville, 4 for Alicante, Almería, Badajoz, Córdoba, Huelva, Jaén, Lugo, Málaga, Murcia and Oviedo and 3 for Alcázar de San Juan, Alcoy, Algeciras, Bilbao, Burgos, Cádiz, Cartagena, Castellón de la Plana, Ciudad Real, El Ferrol, Gijón, Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Las Palmas, Lérida, Llerena, Lorca, Orense, Pamplona, Pontevedra, San Sebastián, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tarragona, Valladolid, Vera, Vigo and Zaragoza. The law also provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated throughout the legislature.

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 Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia were allocated four seats each, whereas each of the remaining provinces was allocated three seats, for a total of 150. The remaining 30 were allocated to a number of institutions, electing one seat each—the Archdioceses of Burgos, Granada, Santiago de Compostela, 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, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza; and the Economic Societies of Friends of the Country from Madrid, Barcelona, 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).

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.

Results

Congress of Deputies

← Summary of the 19 December 1920 Congress of Deputies election results →

Parties and coalitions			Seats
			Seats	+/−
		Liberal Conservative Party (Ministerials) (PLC)1 2	174	+80
		Maurist Party (PM)1	24	–44
		Ciervist Conservatives (CC)	23	–9
		Independent Conservatives (Cons.i)	3	+3
Total Conservatives			224	+30
		Liberal Democrats (LD)1	45	–7
		Liberals (Romanonists) (L)1	34	–12
		Liberal Left (IL)1 2	28	–2
		Agrarian Liberals (Gassetists) (Lib.agr)	5	±0
		Nicetist Liberals (Lib.nic)	4	±0
		Independent Liberals (Lib.i)	3	±0
Total Liberals			119	–21
		Reformist Party (PR)	9	+3
		Radical Republican Party (PRR)	8	–2
		Radical Republican Party (PRR)	5	+1
		Republicans (Rep)	3	–3
		Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)	4	–2
		Catalan Republican Party (PRC)	2	–3
		Autonomist Republican Union Party (PURA)	2	+1
		Catalan Nationalist Republicans (Rep.nac.cat)	2	±0
		Democratic Republican Party (PRD)	2	+1
		Independent Republicans (Rep.i)	2	±0
Total Republicans, Socialists and Reformists			31	–2
		Regionalist League of Catalonia (LRC)	14	±0
		Autonomist Monarchist Federation (FMA)	3	±0
		Regionalists (Reg)	2	±0
		Basque Nationalist Communion (CNV)	1	–4
Total Regionalists and Nationalists			20	–4
		Traditionalist Communion (Jaimists) (CT)	4	±0
		Traditionalist Catholic Party (PCT)	2	–1
		Integrist Party (PI)	1	±0
		Independent Catholics (Cató.i)	1	–3
		Carlist Catholics (Cató.carl)	0	–1
Total Carlists and Traditionalists			8	–5
	Basque Dynastics (Din.v)2		3	+2
	Agrarians (Agr)		1	–1
	Independents (Indep)		3	+1
Total			409	±0
Sources
Footnotes: 1 Liberal Conservative Party, Maurist Party, Liberal Democrats, Liberals (Romanonists) and Liberal Left ran together under the National Monarchist Union label in Catalonia. 2 Liberal Conservative Party, Liberal Left and Basque Dynastics ran together under the Monarchist Action League label in Biscay.

Seats (parties/coalitions) PLC   42.54% LD   11.00% L   8.31% IL   6.85% PM   5.87% CC   5.62% LRC   3.42% PR   2.20% PRR   1.96% Lib.agr   1.22% PSOE   0.98% CT   0.98% Lib.nic   0.98% FMA   0.73% Din.v   0.73% Lib.i   0.73% Cons.i   0.73% PRC   0.49% PURA   0.49% PCT   0.49% Rep.nac.cat   0.49% PRD   0.49% Reg   0.49% Rep.i   0.49% CNV   0.24% PI   0.24% Agr   0.24% Cató.i   0.24% Indep   0.73%

Seats (factions) Conservatives   54.77% Liberals   29.10% Republicans   7.58% Regionalists   4.89% Carlists   1.96% Others   1.71%

Bibliography

• Carreras de Odriozola, Albert; Tafunell Sambola, Xavier (2005) [1989]. Estadísticas históricas de España, siglos XIX-XX (PDF) (in Spanish). Vol. 1 (II ed.). Bilbao: Fundación BBVA. pp. 1072–1097. ISBN 84-96515-00-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015.
• Martorell Linares, Miguel Ángel (1997). "La crisis parlamentaria de 1913-1917. La quiebra del sistema de relaciones parlamentarias de la Restauración". Revista de Estudios Políticos (in Spanish) (96): 137–161. ISSN 0048-7694. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
• Martínez Relanzón, Alejandro (2017). "Political Modernization in Spain Between 1876 and 1923". Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska, sectio K. 24 (1). Madrid: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University: 145–154. doi:10.17951/k.2017.24.1.145.

External links

• Historical archive of deputies (1810–1977) from www.congreso.es, the official Congress of Deputies web portal (in Spanish)
• Elections in the Sexenio Revolucionario and the Restoration at www.historiaelectoral.com (in Spanish/Catalan)