1914 Spanish general election
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All 408 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 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Registered | 4,714,402 0.1% (3,712,106 in constituencies where elections were held) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 2,551,403 (68.7%) 5.0 pp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1914 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 8 March and on Sunday, 22 March 1914, to elect the 15th Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 408 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.[1][2]
For the first time since the approval of the 1876 Constitution, neither of the major parties (Conservatives or Liberals) were able to command a majority on their own. As a result, Conservative Eduardo Dato had to govern in minority, relying on support from Antonio Maura's faction.
Overview
The Spanish legislature, the Cortes, was composed of two chambers at the time of the 1914 election:
- The lower chamber, the Congress of Deputies.
- The upper chamber, the Senate.
This was a nearly perfect bicameral system, with the two chambers established as "co-legislative bodies". Both chambers had legislative, control and budgetary functions, sharing equal powers except for laws on contributions or public credit, where the Congress had preeminence.[3]
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 (Spanish for "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 the Interior, the provincial civil governors, and the local bosses (caciques) to ensure victory and exclude minor parties from the power sharing.
Electoral system
For the Congress of Deputies, 90 seats were allocated to 28 multi-member constituencies and awarded using a partial block voting, with the remaining 318 awarded under a first-past-the-post system in single-member districts. Instead of voting for parties, electors would vote for individual candidates. In districts electing more than one seat and up to four, electors could vote for one less candidate than seats to be filled; in those with more than four seats and up to eight, for up to two less; in those with more than eight seats and up to ten, for up to three less; and for up to four less in multi-member constituencies electing ten seats or more. Candidates winning a plurality of votes in each constituency were elected. In single-member districts were candidates ran unopposed, and in multi-member districts where the number of candidates was equal or less than the number of seats to be filled, candidates were automatically proclaimed without an election. The overall number of seats was determined by the population count, with one seat per each 50,000 inhabitants. Voting was compulsory and on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, with males over twenty-five and at least a two-year residency in a municipality required to vote. Only those above seventy years old, first instance judges, public notaries and the clergy were exempt from voting. Concurrently, secular males at least twenty-five years old were eligible for the Congress if meeting one of these requirements: (1) having previously held the position of deputy; (2) having been proposed by at least two senators or former senators, two deputies or former deputies for the same province, or three provincial or former provincial deputies within the constituency; Or (3) having been proposed by at least 0.05% of registered electors in the district.[4]
The Senate was not a directly elected body, with its 360 members being divided into three different classes:
- Senators in their own right. These included the King's offspring, as well as the heir apparent; Grandees of Spain of the first class, captain generals of the Army, the Navy Admiral, the Patriarch of the Indies and archbishops, among others.
- Senators for life. Appointed by the King.
- Elective senators. Appointed by major contributors, councilors, provincial deputies, universities, metropolitan councils, the Royal Academy of History, the Royal Academy of Medicine or others, as well as by Ministries, Societies of Friends of the Country and other economic societies.
The Constitution of 1876 provided for 180 elective senators and an equal number of senators for the other two classes combined. Elective senators served terms of ten years each, with their terms staggered so that approximately one-half of these seats were up for appointment every five years. The King could dissolve the entirety of the elective section of the Senate at will, triggering the appointment of the full contingent of elective senators.[5][6]
Results
Congress of Deputies
Parties and coalitions | Popular vote | Seats | |||||
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Votes | % | ±pp | Won | +/− | |||
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (Spain)/meta/color"| | Liberal Conservative Party (PLC) | 193 | +78 | ||||
bgcolor="Template:Maurist Party/meta/color"| | Maurist Conservatives (M) | New | 22 | +22 | |||
bgcolor="Template:Ciervists/meta/color"| | Ciervist Conservatives (CC) | New | 5 | +5 | |||
Independent Conservatives (Con.i) | New | 1 | +1 | ||||
Conservatives | 221 | +106 | |||||
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Party (Spain, 1880)/meta/color"| | Liberal Party (PL) | 84 | –131 | ||||
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democratic Party (Spain, 1913)/meta/color"| | Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) | New | 38 | +38 | |||
Independent Liberals (Lib.i) | New | 1 | +1 | ||||
Liberals | 123 | –92 |
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Republican Coalition (Spain, 1914)/meta/color"| | Republican Coalition (PRR–UFNR)1 | 11 | –8 | ||||
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width="1" bgcolor="Template:Republican Nationalist Federal Union/meta/color"| | Republican Nationalist Federal Union (UFNR) | 6 | –5 | ||||
bgcolor="Template:Radical Republican Party/meta/color"| | Radical Republican Party (PRR) | 5 | –3 |
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Reformist Party (Spain)/meta/color"| | Reformist Party (PR) | New | 11 | +11 |
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Republican–Socialist Conjunction/meta/color"| | Republican–Socialist Conjunction (CRS)1 | 10 | –7 | ||||
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width="1" bgcolor="Template:Republican Federation (Spain)/meta/color"| | Republicans (Rep) | 9 | –7 | ||||
bgcolor="Template:Spanish Socialist Workers' Party/meta/color"| | Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) | 1 | ±0 |
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Federal Democratic Republican Party/meta/color"| | Federal Democratic Republican Party (PRDF) | 1 | –1 | ||||
bgcolor="Template:Autonomist Republican Union Party/meta/color"| | Autonomist Republican Union Party (PURA) | 1 | –1 | ||||
Independent Republicans (Rep.i) | 1 | ±0 | |||||
Republicans | 35 | –6 | |||||
bgcolor="Template:Regionalist League of Catalonia/meta/color"| | Regionalist League of Catalonia (LRC) | 13 | +3 | ||||
Independent Catalan Nationalists (Nac.cat.i) | 1 | ±0 | |||||
Regionalists | 14 | +3 |
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Traditionalist Communion/meta/color"| | Traditionalist Communion–Integrist Party (CT–PI)2 | 7 | –5 | ||||
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width="1" bgcolor="Template:Traditionalist Communion/meta/color"| | Traditionalist Communion (CT) | 5 | –5 | ||||
bgcolor="Template:Integrist Party/meta/color"| | Integrist Party (PI) | 2 | ±0 |
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Independent Catholics/meta/color"| | Independent Catholics (Cató.i) | 5 | +2 | |||||||
Carlists and Traditionalists | 12 | –3 | ||||||||
bgcolor="Template:Basque Dynastics/meta/color"| | Basque Dynastics (Din.v) | New | 1 | +1 | ||||||
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color"| | Independents | 1 | –3 | |||||||
Non-established | 1 | –2 | ||||||||
Total | 2,551,403 | 100.00 | 408 | +4 | ||||||
Votes cast / turnout | 2,551,403 | 68.73 | ||||||||
Abstentions | 1,160,703 | 31.27 | ||||||||
Registered voters (in constituencies where elections were held) | 3,712,106 | 78.74 | ||||||||
Registered voters (total) | 4,714,402 | |||||||||
Source(s): Spanish Statistical Annuary, historiaelectoral.com | ||||||||||
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Bibliography
- Carreras, Albert; Tafunell, Xavier; Soler, Raimon; Fontana, Josep (2005) [1989]. Estadísticas históricas de España, siglos XIX-XX (PDF) (in Spanish). Vol. Volume 1 (II ed.). Bilbao: Fundación BBVA. pp. 1072–1097. ISBN 84-96515-00-1.
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References
- ^ "Real decreto declarando disuelto el Congreso de los Diputados, de 2 de enero de 1914" (PDF) (in Spanish). boe.es. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
- ^ "Real decreto declarando disuelta la parte electiva del Senado, de 13 de febrero de 1914" (PDF) (in Spanish). boe.es. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
- ^ "El Senado en la historia constitucional española" (in Spanish). senado.es. Retrieved 2016-12-26.
- ^ "Ley electoral, de 8 de agosto de 1907" (PDF) (in Spanish). boe.es. Retrieved 2016-12-26.
- ^ "Ley electoral de Senadores, de 8 de febrero de 1877" (PDF) (in Spanish). boe.es. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
- ^ "Constitución de 1876" (PDF) (in Spanish). cepc.gob.es. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
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)