# 1899 Spanish general election

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 16 April (for the Congress of Deputies) and on Sunday, 30 April 1899 (for the Senate), to elect the members of the 9th Restoration Cortes. All 401 seats in the Congress of Deputies (plus one special district) were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
It was the first election to be held after the Spanish–American War, which had seen the loss of the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific with the Treaty of Paris signed on 10 December 1898. Together with Spain's defeat in the war, internal rivalries within the Liberal Party led to a major split—led by Germán Gamazo and his "gamacist" faction—and the downfall of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta's government, with Francisco Silvela being appointed as new prime minister in March 1899.
In the ensuing general election, Silvela's Conservative party secured an overall majority in both chambers.

## Background

The Spanish Constitution of 1876 enshrined Spain as a constitutional monarchy, awarding the monarch the right of legislative initiative together with the bicameral Cortes; the capacity to veto laws passed by the legislative body; the power to appoint senators and government ministers; as well as the title of commander-in-chief of the army and navy. The monarch would 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 informal system, the major political parties at the time, the Conservatives and the Liberals—characterized as elite parties with loose structures dominated by internal factions, each led by powerful individuals—alternated in power by means of election rigging, which they achieved through the encasillado, assignating the seats in the general elections before they were held by 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. The result was "a liberal system without democracy".
Upon assuming office in October 1897, Prime Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta recalled Valeriano Weyler as governor of Cuba and appointed pro-autonomy Segismundo Moret as minister of Overseas, in an attempt to tackle the deteriorating situation in the Cuban War of Independence, with two autonomy charters—for Cuba and Puerto Rico—being approved shortly afterwards. The involvement of the United States, especially following the sinking of the USS Maine and the breakout of the Spanish–American War in April 1898, led to a 10-week campaign in which the Sagasta government sued for peace after the loss of two Spanish naval squadrons in the battles of Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay. The war resulted in Spain losing its American and Asia-Pacific colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines and Guam under the terms of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, with the remaining Spanish possessions in the Pacific being sold to the German Empire.
Sagasta resigned in March 1899 over his government's perceived responsibility in these losses, with Queen Regent Maria Christina handing power to Francisco Silvela. Germán Gamazo, several times-minister under Liberal cabinets, had split from the party in October 1898 following the Ribot scandal—a controversy involving Cádiz governor and Gamazo's ally Pascual Ribot—which he attributed to an internal conspiration within the Liberal Party to get rid of him as Development minister.

## 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, and judicial matters, where preeminence was vested in the Senate. Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of 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.
For the Congress of Deputies, 91 seats were elected using a partial block voting system in 26 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 310 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 eight seats or more, electors could vote for no more than three candidates less than the number of seats to be allocated; 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. The Congress was entitled to one member per each 50,000 inhabitants, with each multi-member constituency being allocated a fixed number of seats. Additionally, literary universities, economic societies of Friends of the Country and officially organized chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture were entitled to one seat per each 5,000 registered voters that they comprised, which resulted in one additional special district for the 1899 election.
As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:
| Seats | Constituencies |
| 8 | Madrid |
| 7 | Barcelona$^{(+2)}$ |
| 5 | Palma, Seville$^{(+1)}$ |
| 3 | Alicante, Almería, Badajoz, Burgos, Cádiz, Cartagena, Córdoba, Granada, Jaén, Jerez de la Frontera, La Coruña, Lugo, Málaga, Murcia, Oviedo, Pamplona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santander, Tarragona, Valencia, Valladolid, Zaragoza |
For the Senate, 180 seats were indirectly elected by the local councils and major taxpayers, with electors voting for delegates instead of senators. Elected delegates—equivalent in number to one-sixth of the councillors in each local council—would then vote for senators using a write-in, two-round majority voting system. Following a redistribution of the 19 senators allocated to Cuba and Puerto Rico as a result of the loss by Spain of these colonies, 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 special districts comprising 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 other royal academies (History; Fine Arts of San Fernando; Exact, Physical and Natural 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 with an annual income of at least 60,000 Pt (from their own real estate or from rights that enjoy the same legal consideration); Captain Generals of the Army and the Navy Admiral; the Patriarch of the Indies and archbishops; and the presidents of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme War Council and the Supreme Council of the Navy, after two years of service—as well as senators for life appointed directly by the monarch.

### Election date

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 27 March and 10 April 1898, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 27 March and 10 April 1903, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election. There was no constitutional requirement for concurrent elections to 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 16 March 1899, with the dissolution decree setting the election dates for 16 April (for the Congress) and 30 April 1899 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 2 June.

## Candidates

For the Congress, Spanish citizens of age and with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not sentenced to perpetual disqualification from political rights or public offices by a final court's decision, or to afflictive penalties if no legal rehabilitation had been obtained at least two years in advance of the election, or to other criminal penalties if the serving of the sentence could not be proven before taking the office of deputy. Other causes of ineligibility were imposed on those physically or morally incapacitated; bankrupt or insolvent persons who had not paid out their debts; and contractors of public works or services; as well as a number of territorial-level officers in government bodies and institutions being barred from running, during their tenure of office, in constituencies within the whole or part of their respective area of jurisdiction.
For the Senate, eligibility was limited to those entitled to be appointed as senators in their own right or those who had belonged to one of the following categories: presidents of the Senate and the Congress of Deputies; deputies who had belonged to at least three different congresses or serving for at least eight terms; government ministers; other Grandees of Spain; Army's lieutenant generals and Navy's vice admirals, two years after their appointment; ambassadors after two years of service and plenipotentiary ministers after four; other members and prosecutors of the Council of State, the Supreme Court, the Court of Auditors, the Supreme War Council and the Supreme Council of the Navy, and the Dean of the Court of Military Orders, after two years of service; presidents and directors of the Royal Spanish Academy and the other royal academies (History; Fine Arts of San Fernando; Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; Moral and Political Sciences and Medicine); full academics of the aforementioned corporations occupying the first half of the seniority scale in their corps, first-class general inspectors of the corps of Civil Engineers, Mines and Forests, full-time university professors with at least four years of seniority in their category and practice (and provided that those had an annual income of at least 7,500 Pt from their own property, salaries from jobs that cannot be lost except for legally proven cause, or from retirement, withdrawal or termination); as well as those who had an annual income of 20,000 Pt or were taxpayers with a minimum quota of 4,000 Pt in direct contributions at least two years in advance, as long as they were of the Spanish nobility, had been previously deputies, provincial deputies or mayors in provincial capitals or towns over 20,000 inhabitants, as well as those who had ever held the office of senator before the promulgation of the 1876 Constitution.

## Results
### Congress of Deputies

← Summary of the 16 April 1899 Congress of Deputies election results → :
| Parties and alliances | Parties and alliances | Popular vote | Popular vote | Seats |
| Parties and alliances | Parties and alliances | Votes | % | Seats |
| | Conservative Union–Liberal Conservative Party (UC–PLC) | | | 240 |
| | Liberal Party (PL) | | | 92 |
| | Gamacist Liberals (G) | | | 32 |
| | Republican Fusion (FR) | | | 11 |
| | Tetuanist Conservatives (T) | | | 11 |
| | Liberal Reformist Party (PLR) | | | 3 |
| | Carlist Coalition (CC) | | | 3 |
| | Federal Republican Party (PRF) | | | 2 |
| | Blasquist Republicans (RB) | | | 1 |
| | Independents (INDEP) | | | 7 |
| Total | Total | | | 402 |
| Votes cast / turnout | Votes cast / turnout | | | |
| Abstentions | Abstentions | | | |
| Registered voters | Registered voters | | | |
| Sources |||||
Seats
UC–PLC
59.70%
PL
22.89%
G
7.96%
FR
2.74%
T
2.74%
CC
0.75%
PLR
0.75%
PRF
0.50%
RB
0.25%
INDEP
1.74% :

### Senate

← Summary of the 30 April 1899 Senate of Spain election results → :
| Parties and alliances | Parties and alliances | Seats |
| | Conservative Union–Liberal Conservative Party (UC–PLC) | 103 |
| | Liberal Party (PL) | 47 |
| | Gamacist Liberals (G) | 7 |
| | Tetuanist Conservatives (T) | 7 |
| | Carlist Coalition (CC) | 4 |
| | Republican Fusion (FR) | 1 |
| | Liberal Reformist Party (PLR) | 1 |
| | Independents (INDEP) | 1 |
| | Archbishops (ARCH) | 9 |
| Total elective seats | Total elective seats | 180 |
| Sources |||
Seats
UC–PLC
57.22%
PL
26.11%
G
3.89%
T
3.89%
CC
2.22%
FR
0.56%
PLR
0.56%
INDEP
0.56%
ARCH
5.00% :

### Maps

* Election results by constituency (Congress).

### Distribution by group

Summary of political group distribution in the 9th Restoration Cortes (1899–1901) :
| Group | Group | Parties and alliances | Parties and alliances | C | S | Total |
| | UC–PLC | | Conservative Union–Liberal Conservative Party (UC–PLC) | 239 | 100 | 343 |
| | UC–PLC | | Basque Dynastics (Urquijist) (DV) | 1 | 3 | 343 |
| | PL | | Liberal Party (PL) | 92 | 47 | 139 |
| | G | | Gamacist Liberals (G) | 32 | 7 | 39 |
| | T | | Tetuanist Conservatives (T) | 11 | 7 | 18 |
| | FR | | National Republican Party (PRN) | 10 | 1 | 12 |
| | FR | | Centralist Republican Party (PRC) | 1 | 0 | 12 |
| | CC | | Traditionalist Communion (Carlist) (CT) | 3 | 3 | 7 |
| | CC | | Integrist Party (PI) | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| | PLR | | Liberal Reformist Party (PLR) | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| | PRF | | Federal Republican Party (PRF) | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| | RB | | Blasquist Republicans (RB) | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| | INDEP | | Independents (INDEP) | 4 | 1 | 8 |
| | INDEP | | Independent Catholics (CAT) | 2 | 0 | 8 |
| | INDEP | | Independent Possibilists (P.IND) | 1 | 0 | 8 |
| | ARCH | | Archbishops (ARCH) | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| Total | Total | Total | Total | 402 | 180 | 582 |