The 1919 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 1 June (for the
Congress of Deputies)[a] and on Sunday, 15 June 1919 (for the
Senate), to elect the 18th
Cortes of the
Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 409 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
Overview
Electoral system
The Spanish
Cortes were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly
perfect bicameral system. 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.[2][3] Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of
compulsory,
universal manhood suffrage, which 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. Those older than 70, the clergy, first instance judges and public notaries were exempt from this obligation.[4][5]
For the Congress of Deputies, 98 seats were elected using a
partial block voting system in 28 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 311 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 those districts where the number of candidates was equal or less than the number of seats up for election, candidates were to be automatically elected. The Congress was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, with each multi-member constituency being allocated a fixed number of seats. The law also provided for
by-elections to fill seats vacated throughout the legislature.[2][6][7][8]
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:[7][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]
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. The
previous Congress and Senate elections were held on 24 February and 10 March 1918, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 24 February and 10 March 1923, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a
snap election.[2][7][18] There was no constitutional requirement for simultaneous elections for 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 2 May 1919, with the election
decree—issued on 10 May—setting the election dates for 1 June (for the Congress) and 15 June 1919 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 24 June.[20][21][22]
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.[23][24]
Martínez Ruiz, Enrique; Maqueda Abreu, Consuelo; De Diego, Emilio (1999).
Atlas histórico de España (in Spanish). Vol. 2. Bilbao: Ediciones KAL. pp. 109–120.
ISBN9788470903502.