page_title: Electoral Carlism (Restoration)
section_title: Personalities
hierarchical_section_title: Electoral Carlism (Restoration) / Personalities
caption_attribution_description: English: Juan Vazquez de Mella as pictured by La Ilustració catalana 20.05.1906
context_page_description: Electoral Carlism of Restoration was vital to sustain Traditionalism in the period between the Third Carlist War and the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. Carlism, defeated in 1876, during the Restauración period recalibrated its focus from military action to political means and media campaigns. Accommodating themselves to political framework of the Alfonsine monarchy, the movement leaders considered elections, and especially elections to Congreso de los Diputados, primary vehicle of political mobilization. Though Carlist minority in the Cortes remained marginal and its impact on national politics was negligible, electoral campaigns were key to sustain the party until it regained momentum during the Second Spanish Republic.
context_section_description: There were 64 individuals elected as Carlist deputies throughout the Restoration period; some of them served only one term, and some were parliamentarian veterans. The 4 most-serving deputies held 25% of all Carlist mandates of the period. Lloréns was 3 times elected from Levantine districts, before serving 8 consecutive terms from the Navarrese Estella.  Until today he remains the longest serving Carlist deputy ever (24 years), the longest continuously serving Carlist deputy ever (18 years) and the most-elected Carlist deputy ever (11 times). Vázquez de Mella was 7 times elected from Navarre and once representing Oviedo. Barrio served as Carlist political leader between 1899 and 1909; in the 1891-1909 period (except 1903-1905) he was elected from his native Palencian Cervera de Pisuerga and led the Carlist minority in the lower chamber. Senante represented the Integrist branch of the movement. Though an Alicantino, for 16 years he was continuously standing for Azpeitia and together with Llorens he holds the title of the most continuously elected Carlist deputy ever (8 times).
  There was no rule as to Traditionalist political leaders competing for parliament. Candido Nocedal did not field his candidature after the 1876 defeat, marqués de Cerralbo had a seat guaranteed in the Senate by virtue of his grandeza de España, Matías Barrio did run between 1901 and 1907 (and lost in 1903), Bartolome Feliu Perez was successful in 1910, Pascual Comin did not have a chance to compete during his extremely short tenure, Luis Hernando de Larramendi lost in 1920 and marqués de Villores was obliged by the royal order of the Carlist king to abstain in 1923. Leaders of the breakaway Traditionalist factions tended to compete for parliamentary seat: the first Integrist jefe Ramón Nocedal was 4 times successful though he recorded also defeats, the successive one Juan Olazábal Ramery preferred to stay out of electoral campaigns. Following the secession from mainstream Carlism in 1919, Vazquez de Mella failed in his bid for the Cortes.
  Three times there were two generations serving as Carlist MPs. Chronologically first are the Ortiz de Zarate father and son, Ramon and Enrique, both representing the Alavese Vitoria in the 19th century. Then come the Ampuero father and son, José María and José Joaquín, from Durango. The Dominguez father and son, Tomas and Tomás, stood for the Navarrese district of Aoiz. There are only 5 cases of individuals serving in the parliament before and after the Third Carlist War. Some of the politicians who started their deputy career during Restoration served in the Cortes until the late 1960s, the best known case being this of Esteban Bilbao, the future president of the Francoist quasi-parliament; his first and his last days in the legislative are spanned by the time distance of 49 years.
  There were cases of Carlist deputies acquiring their seat with no competition during the elections. They were most frequent in Navarre (8 times), where periodically in Estella and Aoiz districts potential counter-candidates acknowledged Carlist supremacy and did not even bother to compete, though sporadically the notorious Article 29 was applied also elsewhere (e.g. in favor of Senante in the Guipuzcoan Azpeitia or in favor of Llosas Badia in the Catalan Olot). Joaquín Llorens recorded the most triumphant victory, conquering 99,51% of votes cast in 1907. None of the studies consulted offers any detailed and systematic personal profiling. The information available suggests that Carlist deputies were usually landowners, lawyers, academics and journalists, with rather few entrepreneurs, officials and military men. Most of them commenced the Cortes career in their 30s.
caption: Vázquez de Mella
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