page_title: Josep de Suelves i de Montagut
section_title: Cacique
hierarchical_section_title: Josep de Suelves i de Montagut / Cacique
caption_attribution_description: Català: Castell d'AltafullaEspañol: Castillo de Altafulla This is a photo of a monument indexed in the Spanish heritage register of Bienes de Interés Cultural under the reference RI-51-0006567.
context_page_description: Josep de Suelves i de Montagut, 9th Marquis of Tamarit was a Spanish Carlist politician.
context_section_description: As in 1886 Suelves assumed marquesado de Tamarit after his deceased uncle, he started to visit Spain. Living intermittently in Paris and in his Catalan family castle of Altafulla, he permanently settled in the latter residence in the early 1890s. Following the years of abstention the Carlists for the first time during Restauración officially joined the electoral race in 1891; Suelves fielded the candidature in his native district of Roquetes near Tortosa. He stood no chance against the conservative candidate Alberto Bosch y Fustegueras, quoting political corruption and caciquismo as reasons of his defeat. It is not clear whether he run in the Cortes elections in 1893, though was initially reported by the press to compete in Roquetes again.
  Prior to the 1896 campaign Tamarit concluded that challenging candidates of two partidos turnistas in a single-mandate district was a lost cause; instead, he decided to run in the multi-mandate circunscripción of Tarragona. He was successfully voted in and joined the small Carlist minority in the Cortes. During the next 20 years he kept competing in almost all electoral campaigns from the same district, victorious also in 1898, 1901 and 1907. In 1899, when the claimant ordered abstention anticipating another Carlist insurgency, Tamarit did run as independent and lost, but was consoled having been elected to the Senate. In 1903 he lost, possibly suffering from internal conflict within the Tarragona Carlism, and did not compete in 1905. Following the triumph within Solidaritat Catalana in 1907, he failed during re-election campaigns of 1910, 1914 and 1916, losing to Liberal, Republican and Catalanist candidates; his defeat was initially marginal to turn decisive later on. In 1918 he did not compete; Suelves/Montserrat apparently intended to run for Senate, but eventually it was the former deputy from Gerona Dalmacio Iglesías who successfully represented provincial Carlism in the upper house. He acknowledged that it was probably time for political retirement. 
  A present-day scholar considers Tamarit an exemplary cacique, local party boss fundamental to culture of clientelism and political corruption, typical for Spain of that period; he is also pictured as representative of this branch of Carlism which perfectly accommodated itself to the Restauración political environment. His electoral career was made possible by backstage political negotiations and by flexibility bordering opportunism, as Tamarit excelled in behind-the-curtain deals with whoever was prepared to agree them, regardless of ideological leanings. Since the three-mandate Tarragona district allowed much room for alliance negotiations, Suelves skillfully expoited the opportunity by maintaining good relations with governmental circles, partidos turnistas and parties on the borderlines of the system alike. This is not to say he did not enjoy genuine electoral support at least in some municipalities, though it is unclear whether these were Carlist strongholds or rather strongholds of his political clientele. It seems that in general he was supported by two social groups: most rural peasants and ultraclerical electorate.
caption: Altafulla residence
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3008", "Image ImageLength": "2000", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D40", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:09:24 19:18:03", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "296", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1106", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7916", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:03:13 11:35:35", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:03:13 11:35:35", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1040241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "126797/20000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "4294967295", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "980", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}