The Spanish Restoration Era: Politics and Power (1874-1902)

The Regime of the Restoration (1874-1902)

The political system of the Restoration is absolutely linked to the figure of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. He favored keeping the old Bourbon and liberal anti-democratic system based on census suffrage. He defended the idea of shared sovereignty between the King and Parliament, at an intermediate point between the Old Regime and the democratic monarchy of 1869.

He was aware of the need for renewal:

• Alfonso XII was to replace the unpopular Isabel II. Cánovas got the Queen to relinquish her claim to the throne in 1870.
• There was a need to stop the ongoing military interventions.
• There was a need to create a two-party system based on two bourgeois parties that were taking turns in power: the Conservative Party, led by Cánovas, and the Liberal Party, led by Sagasta.

The 1876 Constitution

Although a Constituent Assembly met, its real inspiration was Cánovas del Castillo himself:

• Cortes: Shared sovereignty with the King. This meant the denial of the idea of national sovereignty.
• Bicameral Court:
  • Elected Congress
  • Senate, which represented the country's powerful classes:
    • Senators "by right": Grandees of Spain and church and military hierarchies
    • Senators "for life", appointed by the King
    • Senators elected by popular vote based on the census of the largest contributors
• Strengthening the power of the Crown, which was established at the heart of the State:
  • Executive power: the appointment of ministers and direct command of the army
  • Shared legislative power with the Parliament:
    • Absolute veto over laws passed by Parliament
    • Power to convene, suspend, or dissolve the Parliament
• Theoretical recognition of rights and freedoms, which in practice were limited or postponed during the administrations of Cánovas.
• Did not specify the type of vote to elect the Congress. Later, under the Conservative Party government of Cánovas, an Electoral Act was passed in 1878 that established the census vote, limited to the largest contributors.
• Catholicism was declared the official state religion. Other faiths were allowed in private.

The Reign of Alfonso XII (1875-1885): Turnism

Cánovas designed a system based on the peaceful turn of two parties in power. The Conservative Party with its leader Cánovas, and the Liberal Party, which had as its principal leader Sagasta and included former progressive unionists and some former moderate Republicans.

The system had an important duty to ensure the peaceful alternation in power, ending a long period of military interventionism and pronouncements. However, the shift was a pure political artifice, intended to keep out of power the forces that were outside the system designed by Cánovas: the leftist forces, the labor movement, regionalism, and nationalism.

The party leaders agreed on and set the shift in power beforehand. Once the alternation was agreed upon, the following mechanism was produced:

• The King appointed a new head of government and granted a decree dissolving the Cortes.
• The new government called elections that were completely spurious, with "manufactured" results through the "encasillado" (pigeonholing), a pre-allocation of seats in which a sufficient number were left to the opposition.

Caciquismo

The key to electoral tampering was in the "caciques" (local political bosses) who were responsible for implementing the agreed election results by party elites.

The caciques were rich and influential figures in rural Spain (landlords, lenders, notaries, etc.), who, following the instructions of the Civil Governor of each province, rigged elections. The governors had in turn been informed by the Minister of the Interior of the results that "should be" leaving in their provinces, following the "encasillado" agreed upon by the political elites.

The methods deployed by the caciques during the elections were very different: violence and threats, in exchange for votes for favors, or just cheating in the elections, called "pucherazo" (ballot box fraud).

The untimely death of Alfonso XII in 1885 opened the period of the Regency of Maria Cristina of Hapsburg (1885-1902) until the coming of age of Alfonso XIII. After the death of the King, Cánovas and Sagasta reaffirmed the operation of the turn in the so-called Pact of Pardo (1885).

The so-called "long government" of Sagasta (1885-1890) adopted a number of policy reform measures:

• 1887: Academic freedoms, association, and press, abolishing censorship
• 1890: Universal male suffrage

However, the turn system continued, based on the systematic falsification of the elections.