The main characteristic of the Restoration regime was the gap between, on the one hand, the
Constitution and the laws that developed it (the “legal country”) and, on the other, the actual functioning of the system (the “real country”). On the surface, it appeared to be a
parliamentary system similar to the
British one, in which the two major parties,
Conservative and
Liberal, alternated in government based on electoral results that determined
parliamentary majorities, while the Crown’s power was merely symbolic and representative. However, in Spain—unlike in the United Kingdom—it was not the voting citizens who decided (after 1890, men over 25) but the Crown, “advised” by the political elite, which determined the alternation (the
turno) between the two major parties. Once the decree dissolving the Cortes was obtained—a power exclusively held by the Crown—the newly appointed Prime Minister would call elections to “manufacture” a comfortable parliamentary majority through systematic
electoral fraud, using a
network of local power brokers (caciques) across the country. Thus, under this system—which “upended the logic of parliamentary practice”—governments changed before elections rather than as a result of them. In 1902, the
regenerationist Joaquín Costa defined “the current form of government in Spain” as an “
oligarchy and
caciquism,” a characterization that much of the
historiography of the Restoration would later adopt. Costa was not the first to denounce the corruption and fraud upon which the regime was based. Others had done so before him, such as the Republican
Gumersindo de Azcárate, who published
El régimen parlamentario en la práctica in 1885.
José María Jover also emphasized the duality between the “formal constitution and the actual functioning of political life” as a fundamental characteristic of the Restoration regime, noting that “any historical analysis of the 1876 Constitution must begin with the fact that the political dynamic envisaged in its articles—the decisive role of the electorate, parliamentary majorities that theoretically share with the king the function of maintaining or overturning governments—not only did not develop in practice as formally envisioned, but its own architects had already anticipated this discrepancy between the letter of the Constitution and the reality of its application.” Similarly, argued that this duality—between the “formal constitution and the actual functioning of political life”—allowed parties in power to implement their projects while also controlling the budget and public administration jobs, which they used to reward their supporters, who might share their ideology but also sought material benefits.
The king as arbiter between parties: The “royal prerogative” near the throne and one of the two lions of the Palace of the Cortes by Alejandro Ferrant y Fischermans (circa 1875). For
Cánovas del Castillo, the events of Queen
Isabella II’s reign and the
Democratic Sexennium demonstrated that public opinion did not determine which political option should hold power, since it was the governments that “created” the parliamentary majorities they needed to govern, rather than the elections. The proof was that governments, regardless of their ideology, always won elections. “If there is one area where we have an evident inferiority compared to all other constitutional nations, it is in the strength, independence, and initiative of the electorate,” Cánovas declared. “Here, the government has been the great corrupter. The electorate, to a large extent, [...] is nothing more than a mass that moves according to the will of the government.” Other politicians shared this view, such as the centralist
Manuel Alonso Martínez: “The electorate is completely absent in Spain today. [...] There is nothing more unequal in Spain than the struggle of the voter against the government; power, which holds immense resources, is generally generous with the friendly voter while being unjust and even cruel to the opposition voter.” Even
Sagasta’s
constitutionalists acknowledged the problem. His newspaper,
La Iberia, published in March 1877: “Can anyone deny that our customs are flawed? [...] Has any government ever been defeated in an electoral contest? [...] None. This proves that we lack [...] good practices and moderation, temperance, and impartiality in governance.” Thus, according to Cánovas, another instrument was necessary to guarantee the alternation of the two major liberal political options, and that instrument had to be the Crown. “It is the king who must alternately call upon one party or the other so that there are no political outcasts who, as happened during Isabella II’s reign, would resort to military barracks to achieve what was denied to them peacefully.” “The king does not rely on the opinion of the electorate, expressed through parliamentary majorities, to appoint a government. Rather, the opposite occurs: the king appoints a head of government, who proposes ministers to the king, receives a decree of dissolution, and calls new elections, negotiating their outcomes with various political forces (
encasillado) capable of mobilizing their respective clienteles. In this way, ‘elections are organized’ that inevitably produce comfortable majorities for the government that calls them.” , a “
Septembrist” who “turned coat” and joined the Cánovas project. As Minister of the Interior, he distinguished himself through his electoral “maneuvers” to guarantee an overwhelming majority for the Cánovas government, thus inaugurating one of the defining characteristics of the Restoration regime:
electoral fraud. Therefore, as highlights, “the king was responsible for the practical exercise of sovereignty, as he was the one who granted power to a party, which then held elections in which it always secured victory. This royal prerogative—the authority to form a government, along with the decree dissolving the existing Cortes and calling for new elections—was considered ‘the royal prerogative’ par excellence. And in reality, it was.” In 1883, British ambassador to Spain,
Robert Morier, explained the situation to his government: “In this country, the final resort, the ultimate decision regarding the nation’s political fate, does not lie in electoral districts or the popular vote, but in another place not defined in the Constitution.
De jure, and according to the constitutional text, the electorate is indeed the determining factor, as, while the king may appoint whomever he wishes to govern, that individual cannot rule without a parliamentary majority. However, the reality is that this majority does not result from the popular vote but from manipulations orchestrated by the Ministry of the Interior since the electoral machinery belongs entirely to that department. [For this reason], the goal of every party is to gain control of this ministry, and since the Crown can, constitutionally and whenever it desires, place this department in whichever hands it chooses, the crucial role assigned to the royal prerogative becomes immediately evident.” As highlights, the exercise of the "royal prerogative" was "fraught with difficulties to the point that the function of the monarch could be described as that of a 'pilot without a compass'—a figure endowed with enormous powers but lacking the necessary instruments to exercise them properly."
José María Jover raised the same issue: "In the absence of genuine electoral indicators, what guide does the king follow in granting power to a particular leader or political party?" Following , Jover answered: "His ability to maintain 'party unity,' his capacity to consolidate his political sphere within the
bipartisanship imposed by constitutional practice." The principle of shared sovereignty between the king and the Cortes, as enshrined in the Constitution—Article 18 stated that "the power to make laws belongs to the Cortes with the King"—served as the legal facade for the Crown’s function of distributing power among parties. Thus, beyond being the ultimate representation of sovereignty—the symbol of legality and continuity above party struggles—the monarch was a key element in exercising that sovereignty. This granted the Crown extraordinary personal power—though not absolute, as it was limited by the Constitution and other political conventions. However, for Cánovas, this was justified by the absence of an electorate independent from government influence. "The monarchy among us must be a real and effective force, decisive, moderating, and guiding, because there is no other in the country," he declared. Liberal politician
Manuel Alonso Martínez, a key ally of Cánovas in drafting the 1876 Constitution, echoed this sentiment: "The Moderating Power must replace certain functions that, in a normal and perfect representative regime, should be exercised by the electorate." The royal prerogative lay precisely in the Crown's ability to arbitrate political life. As noted, "Cánovas achieved an old objective: that the monarchy be real and effective, moderating and directing political life as long as there was no stable and mature electoral body to determine the course of government action."
The alternation between the two major liberal parties: The turno and
Sagasta swinging on a tree trunk placed on the back of an allegory of Spain. Since access to power was not determined by elections but by the Crown's application of the royal prerogative, two alternating parties were sufficient to maintain the system: one representing a more conservative form of liberalism (the "
right" of the system), and the other a more progressive variant (the "
left"). These were the
Liberal-Conservative Party, led by Cánovas himself, and the
Liberal-Fusionist Party, led by Sagasta. Each sought to encompass all political tendencies within society, while those who rejected the constitutional monarchy (
Carlists and
Republicans) or opposed the principles of liberty and property that underpinned
bourgeois society (
socialists and
anarchists) found themselves "self-excluded." Since they did not need to seek public support through elections to access government, both parties remained, as under the
Isabelline regime, parties of notables—dominated by a few individuals with stable electoral bases, whose primary arena of influence was Parliament. 's relinquishment of power, with Cánovas at the helm followed by his ministers (
the birds of the night). The caption reads: “As soon as the sun of freedom appears on the horizon, the birds of the night flee in fear”.
El Buñuelo satirical magazine, February 17, 1881. The first alternation of power, a direct consequence of the prerogative real, took place in February 1881, when
Sagasta’s
Liberal-Fusionist Party assumed government after six years of predominantly Conservative rule under
Cánovas. However, this transition was not the result of a formal agreement between Cánovas and Sagasta, as would later occur with the
Pact of El Pardo in November 1885. Instead, it stemmed from "a personal decision by Alfonso XII, made without consultation and, likely, against the advice of Cánovas." As José Ramón Milán García highlights, "The arrival of the
Fusionists to the government in February 1881 was undoubtedly one of the defining moments of Alfonso XII’s reign. Its significance was not lost on its protagonists, who recognized that the monarch’s initiative opened the door to overcoming the entrenched conflict between left-wing liberalism and the
Bourbon dynasty. It also marked a step toward resolving the fratricidal struggles that had plagued different factions of Spanish liberalism for decades." As points out, “What became clear in February 1881 was that the final interpreter of the state of affairs, and the one who had the power of decision—above the parliamentary majority and the head of government—was the monarch.” For this reason, as Ángeles Lario states, “This crisis was definitive in allowing Cánovas to see that rules had to be followed by both parties to avoid falling back into the danger of royal whims. […] The first thing he realized was the necessity of controlling the royal prerogative, regulating it, and giving it fixed criteria, far from personal considerations, achieving a balance between royal power and parliamentary power, with party leaders acting as the arbiters. […] The king should yield to public opinion as represented by the major parties. This had the opportunity to materialize due to the specific circumstances of the premature death of the king in 1885.” and
Cánovas, expressly alluding to the
Pact of El Pardo, in the Spanish satirical magazine , 1894. In November 1885, faced with the prospect of a regency under the king’s young and inexperienced wife,
María Cristina of Habsburg, who was pregnant (her son,
a boy, would be born in May 1886), Cánovas, who was then head of government, decided to resign and advised the regent to call Sagasta to power. Cánovas communicated his decision to the liberal leader, who accepted it during a meeting held at the government headquarters, facilitated by General
Martínez Campos, which would become known as the
Pact of El Pardo. “An agreement by which the two parties decided to alternate power automatically in the following years.” As points out, “The death of King Alfonso XII and the memory of the 1885 pact (the improperly named Pact of El Pardo) definitively mark the consolidation of the Restoration regime.” observes that “The power vacuum created by the death of Alfonso XII put the solidity of the Canovist structure to the test. The accession of the Liberal Party to power, now definitively established, and its long period in government (the Long Parliament) contributed to consolidating the political system.” For her part, Ángeles Lario notes that the political agreement reached upon the king’s death “made the two major parties the true directors of political life, consensually controlling the royal prerogative from top to bottom by constructing the necessary parliamentary majorities. This defined the character of
this crucial period of our liberalism and was also the root of its greatest limitations. One might diagnose—if I may use the expression—that the political system of the Restoration suffered from the ailment caused by its success.” is depicted as a mother hen laying eggs and leading her chicks to the Congress of Deputies. Sagasta had just 'manufactured' a comfortable majority in the Cortes after being appointed president of the government, thus initiating the
turno de with
Cánovas' conservatives. Manuel Suárez Cortina emphasizes that ensuring that “the monarchy was real and effective, moderating and directing political life”—Cánovas’s long-held goal According to : “Agreeing that it was the king who alternated the distribution of power rendered
pronunciamientos meaningless as a means of achieving it, but it also discouraged electoral competition. […] This did not eliminate competition between parties—for in exercising his role, the king had to consider each party’s social support—but it tended to weaken it and delay political mobilization. Worse still, it reinforced the clientelist nature of the parties; that is, favor and
cronyism became the primary criteria in the distribution of the benefits of power rather than general, rational, and universal principles. Given that justice was also mediated by political power, ‘corruption and bribery had no other brake than individual morality,’ as Joaquín Romero Maura pointed out. The lack of moral legitimacy of the system eventually came at a high cost.”
Alfonso XII had already privately admitted that he had completely failed in his ambition to “moralize the Spanish public administration” and that “the worst part was that all of this was seen with the greatest indifference.” (liberal leader) and
Antonio Maura (conservative leader), entitled “Theatrical news: ‘the twins’” (
Gedeón, 1909). It criticizes the lack of political pluralism as a consequence of the “
turno de factos”, since the two
twin parties defend the same thing. José Ramón Milán García particularly emphasized what happened with the
Liberal Party: “The liberals fulfilled the essential mission for the king of gradually dismantling the revolutionary threat of
republicanism by attracting, through their reforms, different factions and parties from this field, making a broad revolutionary coalition impossible. […] However, […] this accommodation to a political mechanism that favored their partisan needs had the perverse effect of diminishing their boldness and their willingness to sincerely reform a system that was based on a discriminatory and fraudulent interpretation of the laws, which contributed to its discredit and that of its political class.” highlights that “It was the liberals’ abandonment of the political principle of
national or popular sovereignty that deprived the Liberal Party, and consequently the entire regime, of ideological substance. And thus, the non-ideological tendencies that characterized Spanish political parties—based on
clientelism—were reinforced.” He also notes that the success of the Restoration, as evidenced by its long duration, was since Cánovas managed to “place the equilibrium point of the new regime to the left of the
Moderate Party and the right of the
Progressive Party.” In short, both parties renounced ensuring that “elections were reasonably clean and that government was formed by Parliament and Parliament by the opinion of the electorate” and instead placed “electoral corruption” “at the service of the alternating profit of power.” As a result, for forty-four years, from 1879 to 1923, across twenty-one elections, the party that called them always won. On the other hand, “The possibility of an agreement stemmed from the parallelism existing in the social bases—the propertied classes—of the two parties of the ‘liberal family.’ A parallelism that became more pronounced over time in its essential principles until both became indistinguishable on fundamental issues.” Some politicians could switch parties without posing an ideological problem, like
Antonio Maura, who began in the Liberal Party and ended up leading the Conservative camp. When a cacique was criticized for supporting the liberals in some elections and the conservatives in others, he responded: “Me, change? I never change. The one who changes is the government. I am always with the one in power.”
Distortion of the system: "Oligarchy and caciquism" '' and who were the great caciques of the political regime of the Restoration. Although the term
caciquism was used early on to describe the political regime of the Restoration—by the
general elections of 1891, which, as always, were won by the government that called them, people were already speaking of “the disgusting plague of
caciquism”—its usage became widespread after the
war of 1898. As early as 1898, the liberal
Santiago Alba was already attributing Spain’s defeat to the “unbearable caciquism.” In 1901, the
Madrid Athenaeum opened an inquiry-debate on Spain’s socio-political system, in which about sixty politicians and intellectuals participated. The report summarizing the discussion was written by the
regenerationist Joaquín Costa and was titled . In it, Costa stated that in Spain, “There is no Parliament nor parties, only oligarchies,” “a minority with no interest other than the personal interest of the same ruling minority.” This oligarchy, whose “upper ranks” were the primates (professional politicians based in Madrid, the center of power), was supported by a vast network of “caciques of the first, second, or third degree scattered throughout the territory.” The connection between the great caciques—the primates—and local caciques was ensured by the civil governors. Costa insisted in his report that “oligarchy and caciquism” were not exceptions within the system but rather “the rule, the system itself.” Virtually all participants in the inquiry debate agreed with this conclusion, and its influence continues to this day. More than a century later, “Costa’s binomial, which has become the title of books and history textbooks, remains the most commonly used framework for characterizing the
Restoration period,” notes Carmelo Romero Salvador. In the early 1970s, several historians (Joaquín Romero Maura, , and
Javier Tusell) adopted a new perspective in their studies on caciquism—which, according to Manuel Suárez Cortina, is now dominant—highlighting its strictly political elements, understanding caciquism as a network of patron-client relationships. According to Suárez Cortina, “The most characteristic aspects of this interpretation emphasize the extra-economic nature of the patron-client relationship, the general demobilization of the electorate, the predominance of rural over urban components, the diversity of the nature of relationships and exchanges between patrons and clients depending on time and place; in short, the key features that dominate clientelist relationships.” The fundamental function of the cacique, who typically holds no official position and is often not even a magnate, would be to “mediate” between the Administration and his “clients,” who are numerous and come from all social classes, and whose interests he systematically seeks to satisfy through illegal means—“caciquism feeds on illegality.” “The cacique, whether liberal or conservative, exerts influence in the locality derived from his control over administrative actions; this control is exercised by imposing illegal acts on the administration. The cacique’s immunity from government repercussions stems from the fact that he is the local leader of his party,” states Romero Maura, cited by Montero. His actions are summed up in the maxim: “The law applies to the enemy, and favor to the friend.” Romero Maura summarizes the function of the cacique as follows: characterizes the cacique as "the intermediary between the central administration and the citizens," meaning that his influence is not limited to electoral periods—though it becomes most scandalous then—but is a constant presence in the country’s political life. "caciquism is, above all, the logical manifestation and expression of a social and political structure that manifests itself permanently and daily in interpersonal (patron-client) and politico-administrative relations." A judge from that time defined caciquism under the Restoration as "the personal regime exercised in villages [
pueblos] by twisting or corrupting, through political influence, the functions of the State, in order to subordinate them to the selfish interests of specific factions or individuals." Thus, the key to the
caciquil system "lay in controlling the administration." The liberal
José Canalejas, referring in 1910 to a powerful cacique from Osuna, wrote in a letter to the conservative
Antonio Maura that "they had nothing, absolutely nothing, other than the influence of high-ranking officials of all orders, who, by disobeying the government, committed all sorts of abuses." In summary: "the cacique is the local leader of a party who manipulates the administrative apparatus for his own benefit and that of his clientele." emphasizes that "the
oligarchic nature of the regime can be appreciated if one analyzes the close relationship between the political elite and the social and economic elites"—what historian
Manuel Tuñón de Lara called the "power bloc," composed of large landowners, not all of whom were former nobles, and the upper financial, industrial, and commercial bourgeoisie. Thus, during the Restoration, it was very common to find the most prominent professional politicians (prime ministers, ministers, governors of the Bank of Spain) sitting on the boards of major companies (banks, railroads, mines, etc.). , who manufactured “provincial deputies in his own image and likeness” from the “electoral paste”, by Moya (
Gedeón, 1911). However, with few exceptions (mainly senators), the political elite—the professional politicians of the two major dynastic parties—did not come from the economic elite but rather from the middle classes (with a predominance of lawyers and, to a lesser extent, journalists). The two main parties can thus be described as parties of notables, although, according to historian
Javier Tusell, they never fully became such, as party unity was not based on ideology or a program but on the clientelist networks of the factions that composed them, each hoping to be rewarded with positions once their party came to power. He estimates that there were between 50,000 and 100,000 positions that changed hands with each government turnover. A politician’s career goal was to become a deputy—"General, make me a deputy, and as for becoming a minister, I’ll handle that myself," declared the young
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo to General
O'Donnell, the leader of his party, the
Liberal Union—because reaching that position was the gateway to the highest offices (minister and prime minister). To achieve this, one had to be a "client" of an established and influential politician, so the essential condition for political advancement was loyalty to a patron, or a "deputy-maker," as Carmelo Romero Salvador puts it: "Deputy-makers, yes, because anyone aspiring to significant political influence could not merely obtain a seat and be a deputy, nothing more. He had to create his deputies, those who owed him their seats, and to do so, he had to have the power to make it happen. To a large extent, one went hand in hand with the other: the more deputies who owed him their seats, the greater his ability to continue producing more and thus expand his influence and power." An important factor that explains this phenomenon is that deputies did not receive a salary until well into the 20th century. Their position was profitable "given the indirect benefits it could bring them." The first worker to enter the Restoration Parliament was the socialist
Pablo Iglesias Posse in 1910—the previous one had been Pablo Alsina, fifty years earlier.
Mechanisms of electoral fraud Electoral system government over the distribution of electoral constituencies. Starting from Sagasta (top left) and moving clockwise: , Francisco de Paula Pavía y Pavía,
Manuel Alonso Martínez,
Arsenio Martínez Campos, the
Marquis of la Vega de Armijo, José Luis Albareda,
Fernando Leon y Castillo and Juan Francisco Camacho. The
electoral system of the Restoration was essentially established by the electoral law of 1878, though the 1890 law introduced a significant change by instituting
universal (male) suffrage—the third electoral law of the period, , did not alter the system but rather simplified it, as the famous Article 29 stated that a candidate would be proclaimed elected without the need for a vote if they were the sole candidate running. The 1878 law determined—something that remained throughout the Restoration—that out of the roughly 400 deputies in Congress, more than three-quarters were elected in
single-member districts (where the candidate with the most votes won the seat), while around a hundred were elected in 26 multi-member districts—24 in provincial capitals and two in major cities—where between 3 and 8 deputies (depending on the population of the district) were elected using a modified majoritarian system (voters could only select 80% of the available seats). The single-member districts made electoral fraud much easier—"the sources of age-old caciquism," as Carmelo Romero Salvador put it—as the
Provisional Government of the Second Spanish Republic observed when, in its decree calling for elections to the Constituent Cortes in 1931, it opted for the province as the
electoral district, because the single-member district "left wide open the door to
caciquil coercion, vote-buying, and all known corruptions." Most of the few deputies not belonging to the dynastic parties, particularly the Republicans and Socialists, were elected in multi-member constituencies because fraud was not as easy to implement there if voters were mobilized. This is what happened from 1901 onward in the Barcelona constituency, which had seven deputies to elect. From that year on, the turno parties no longer won any seats there—the
Lliga Regionalista and the Republicans shared them—and from 1910 in Madrid, which had eight deputies, where the Republican-Socialist coalition won four of the next seven elections. Later, once the coalition broke up, the Socialists won the
last election before the
coup d’état of Primo de Rivera in September 1923.
Encasillado ) in El Motín
on the political career of Francisco Romero Robledo, published on August 28, 1881, a few months after the fall of the government of Cánovas, of which he was the “skillful” Minister of the Interior. One of the comments reads: “In electoral scams / leave Posada in diapers” (“En timos electorales / deja a Posada en pañales''”); Romero Robledo is depicted brandishing banknotes with pockets full of banknotes. The mechanism of electoral fraud—greatly facilitated by the single-member district system—began with what was known as the
encasillado, that is, the peaceful distribution of seats between the party that had just formed a government, which was granted a comfortable majority in the Cortes with ministerial deputies, and the outgoing party, which received a significantly smaller but sufficient number of seats to play its role as the "loyal opposition"—usually around fifty seats. The meeting to carry out the
encasillado (literally "grid" or "framework")—so called because it involved "fitting" the deputies of both dynastic parties into the "grid of boxes" formed by more than 300 single-member districts and the hundred or so positions in the 26 multi-member constituencies—was held at the headquarters of the
Ministry of the Interior. "For the candidate, the election was decided in the corridors of the Ministry of the Interior." It was there that the minister, acting as the "Grand Elector"—best exemplified by
Francisco Romero Robledo, who inherited the title from
José Posada Herrera of the
Isabelline period, as he too had an "extraordinary ability to maneuver from the ministry and little scruple in doing so to ensure that the results conformed to the wishes of the government and his own in particular"—agreed with the representative of the outgoing government party on the distribution of constituencies, which often also included those that would be granted to non-dynastic parties. For example, governments always respected the seat of
Gumersindo de Azcárate in
León or that of the
Carlist Matías Barrio y Mier in
Cervera de Pisuerga. and with the bishop's
mitre, the republican
Emilio Castelar) behind the president of the government
Sagasta carried on a litter, who in turn is carrying in his arms the Minister of the Interior , who is the one who actually performed the
miraculous act. The Minister of the Interior and the representative of the outgoing government decided—although local bosses (caciques) and party faction leaders were also involved in the negotiations José Varela Ortega refers to deputies from these districts as "natural candidates," while Carmelo Romero Salvador calls them "hermit crabs" because "just as these small crustaceans enter an empty shell from which they are difficult to dislodge, these deputies seize control of a district’s representation, becoming irremovable." Thus, they formed "enduring caciquisms, with the same deputy across multiple legislatures." Regarding the cuneros deputies, Romero Salvador points out that when new elections were called, "the internal struggle among the numerous aspirants for the nomination could be, and in most cases was, more competitive and difficult than the election itself. Being encasillado meant having the support of the government’s apparatus and resources, with everything that entailed, and since the opponent, if there was one, lacked these and also did not have sufficient weight in these districts without a cacique, they were usually elected." An example of a cunero deputy could be
Joaquín Chapaprieta, born in
Torrevieja (
Alicante), who was once a deputy for
Cieza (Murcia), another time for
Loja (Granada), another for Santa María de Órdenes (
La Coruña), and twice for
Noia (La Coruña). Another case is that of the journalist and writer
José Martínez Ruiz Azorín, born in
Monóvar (
Alicante) and a parliamentary chronicler for the conservative newspaper
ABC, who between 1907 and 1919 was elected four times as a deputy for the districts of
Sorbas and
Purchena in
Almería, and a fifth time for
Ponteareas (
Pontevedra). In the case of the latter district, "he did not even have to go there. He merely wrote an article for a local magazine and sent a telegram of thanks: ‘I express my love for the beautiful Galician land and cordially thank the good coreligionists [of the Conservative Party] with whom I share affection and admiration for the illustrious son of Galicia, accomplished by the Treasury portfolio.’" This "illustrious son of Galicia" was
Gabino Bugallal. Romero Salvador notes that throughout the Restoration, the number of districts occupied by the "hermit crabs"—who retained their seat regardless of the party in government—increased, meaning a corresponding decrease in the number of "free" districts, which reduced the government's leeway in placing deputies through encasillado. The proof of this is that, although the government calling the elections always won them, the difference in seats with the other dynastic party decreased throughout the first third of the 20th century. Romero Salvador compiled a list of deputies who held seats in the same district ten times or more during the Restoration. He found a total of 68: 32 conservatives, 32 liberals, three republicans (including
Gumersindo de Azcárate for
León), and one independent Catholic (for the district of
Zumaya). Among the conservatives, notable figures include
Antonio Maura (elected 19 consecutive times between 1891 and 1923 for
Palma de Mallorca) and
Eduardo Dato (17 terms, 12 of them for the district of
Murias de Paredes). On the liberal side, the most prominent was the
Count of Romanones (17 consecutive terms for
Guadalajara). Romero Salvador also highlights the existence of parliamentary dynasties, such as the
Cánovas family—three brothers, four nephews, a brother-in-law, and a brother-in-law by marriage of
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo—, the
Sagasta family—a son, a stepson, a grandson, several uncles, and cousins—, the
Silvela family—two brothers, his father-in-law, his brothers-in-law, and a nephew—, or the
Maura family—three sons. Some deputies "inherited" the districts of their fathers.
Wenceslao Fernández Flórez, a parliamentary chronicler for the monarchist and conservative newspaper
ABC, wrote in 1916: Article 29 of the , promoted by the conservative
Antonio Maura, simplified the encasillado by establishing that in districts where only one candidate ran, they would be elected without the need for a vote. Romero Salvador highlights the paradox of depriving some voters of their right to vote at the very moment when, for the first time in Spain, the law made voting mandatory and, at least in theory, punished those who did not comply. Article 29 remained in force for the next seven elections, during which 734 seats—a quarter of the total—were allocated through this system. In the
1916 elections, called and won by the liberal
Romanones, and the
1923 elections, called and won by the other liberal,
Manuel García Prieto, a third of the deputies obtained their seats without going through the ballot box. "In both cases, as many voters were deprived of the power to exercise their vote (1.7 million) as there were actual voters (two million) in the districts and constituencies where elections did take place." Carmelo Romero Salvador explains the widespread application of Article 29 as follows: "Since going through the ballot box always involved, even when the election was assured, inconveniences, expenses, and a greater dependency on the personal and collective demands of voters, reaching agreements to avoid competition between candidates became a highly sought-after goal."
"Preparation" of the election Once the
encasillado was agreed upon, the Minister of the Interior would inform the civil governors—appointed by the government "in agreement with provincial caciques"—of the results that were to be produced in the districts and constituencies of their province. These, in turn, relayed the instructions to the mayors, who were the authorities responsible for the electoral process (they were in charge of updating electoral rolls and organizing polling stations). "Normally, a threatening letter from the governor to the mayors sufficed, accompanied by a note indicating the government's electoral wishes. When letters had no effect, they resorted to 'summoning the mayors and secretaries' of disobedient towns in the presence of the governor, who 'pressured' them and forced them to comply or resign." If threats were ineffective, the governor took direct action, asserting that municipal law allowed them to fine mayors for disrespect or disobedience to higher authorities or "for omissions that could be detrimental to the public," a clause open to broad interpretation. Governors could also suspend mayors outright, as municipal law permitted. In 1884, the civil governor of Almería boasted of having dismissed sixty municipal councils and imposed fines totaling 30,000
pesetas. The same applied to municipal and first-instance judges, as having judges under their influence ensured that electoral manipulations would go unpunished. As José Varela Ortega points out, "The presence of central power within local corporations, as established by law, constituted the foundation of government interference in elections. [...] It was enough for the civil governor to 'properly' exercise his hierarchical authority to turn mayors into 'puppets' serving the government." The control of municipal corporations allowed for the first step in the "preparation of the district," which was the preparation of electoral rolls. Until the 1907 electoral law, their compilation was the responsibility of municipalities—after that date, it was entrusted to the . Voter lists were "inflated" with the names of nonexistent people—often, the names of fictitious voters were taken from cemetery tombstones. Those who "embodied" them (municipal officials, bailiffs, people brought in from outside as part of flying squads, etc.) were called
lázaros because they had "risen from the dead." Conversely, the lists were also "lightened" by eliminating "hostile" voters. During the era of
census suffrage (1878–1890), tax quotas were manipulated so that individuals who might not vote for the
encasillado candidate were excluded from the lists. Thanks to this method, during the
1884 elections, the Minister of the Interior,
Francisco Romero Robledo, reduced the number of voters in the Madrid constituency from 33,205 to 12,250. The next step was controlling the polling stations, which was done through the mayors responsible for organizing them (hence the importance of having municipal councils under control to ensure the desired election outcome). Control of the polling stations "was carried out either by falsifying the election of their members, manipulating the census or the signatures that elected them [...]. In
Trebujena (
Jerez) in 1884, the mayor forced voters who had signed the liberal list of polling station members to remove their names, transfer them to the official candidacy, and even arrested participants in a meeting held to protest his actions."
Election day: Pucherazo Once the "loyalty" of the municipal council was secured, the desired result was ensured through all kinds of fraudulent methods. The aimed to put an end to these practices but failed, as there was no political will to enforce it, allowing fraud to continue. The generic term
pucherazo—literally "overturning the pot" (i.e., the ballot box)—was used to describe any type of fraudulent action. . The caption of the image reads (in Catalan): “
Ladies and gentlemen... Here are the ballot boxes, there's nothing in them, is there? Well, now you're going to see how, without cheating and with just a handful of
Cánovis trápalis powders, they produce
conservative-leaning provincial delegations.” All sorts of tricks were used, such as spreading false news about the last-minute withdrawal of the opposing candidate, changing voting hours, or relocating the polling station to another place. Adversarial ballots were "vanished," while favorable ones were placed into the ballot box—a practice known in Bilbao as embuchado or bolilleo. In extreme cases, people would violently storm the polling station and smash the ballot boxes to annul the election if an unfavorable result was expected. If necessary, although relatively rare, votes could simply be bought—during the , the
Count of Romanones paid between five and fifteen
pesetas per vote—or recourse was made to violence and intimidation by the ("the cudgel gang"). However, as points out, "physical coercion was very rare. The most common form of coercion was to pressure voters dependent on the administration. And to some degree, they were all forced—not just civil servants—since every ministry had influence over a sphere of public life and had a coercive arsenal to intervene in voters' private lives." "Besides these individual pressures, the administration, as the country's largest employer, could directly coerce 'official elements such as district mayors, night watchmen, tax collectors, and other figures who made up the so-called electoral court.'" If all else failed, ballot boxes were simply replaced with others filled with votes for the encasillado candidate—this was pucherazo in the strict sense—or the results' records were simply falsified. However, in the vast majority of polling stations, there was no violence on election day because the "preparation of the district" (manipulating voter lists and local authorities) "generally rendered explicit coercion unnecessary." However, the fundamental reason coercion was not needed was the lack of political competition and the resulting voter demobilization—this was the main characteristic of the system, according to Valera Ortega. When in certain elections (such as in 1886, 1891, or 1903) the Minister of the Interior decided not to intervene so that votes would be "clean," the caciques took matters into their own hands and committed all the necessary fraud. Voter abstention during the Restoration elections was massive, far higher than reflected in the official records, which were systematically falsified—polling stations where almost no one had voted later appeared in official data with over 80% turnout; in many rural districts, official participation rates of 100% were not uncommon; in urban areas, real participation never exceeded 20%, though official figures reported it as above 75%. A foreign diplomat observed: According to José Varela Ortega, "Obviously, we must not forget the coercive element in the
caciquil relationship, but neither should we exaggerate it. caciquism was also, and perhaps mainly, a pact whose functioning relied more on consensus than on violent imposition; it thrived not so much on repression as on indifference. Abstention was not something the government forced—it was something it benefited from." Once the election was completed—it took place on a Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.—the elected candidates presented themselves in Madrid to form the
Cortes. There was still one last possibility of annulling the election of a non-encasillado candidate through the process of verifying the records, as the Congress of Deputies (with a "ministerial" majority) had the authority to review them if it found any "formal defect." == Inability of the system to evolve into a democratic regime ==