1884 Spanish general election

1884 Spanish general election

← 1881 27 April 1884 (Congress) 8 May 1884 (Senate) 1886 →
All 433 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate 217 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
Registered	808,243
Turnout	587,458 (72.7%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Práxedes Mateo Sagasta José López Domínguez Party Conservative Fusionist Leftist Leader since 1874 1880 1884 Leader's seat Madrid Logroño Coín Seats won 342 C / 140 S 43 C / 15 S 36 C / 8 S
Prime Minister before election Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Conservative Prime Minister after election Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Conservative

The 1884 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 27 April (for the Congress of Deputies) and on Thursday, 8 May 1884 (for the Senate), to elect the 3rd Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain in the Restoration period. All 433 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.

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.^[1][2] Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of censitary suffrage, which comprised national males over 25 years of age fulfilling one of the following criteria: being taxpayers with a minimum quota of 25 Pt per territorial contribution (paid at least one year in advance) or 50 Pt per industrial subsidy (paid at least two years in advance), having a particular position (royal academy numerary members; ecclesiastic individuals; active, unemployed or retired public employees; military personnel; widely recognized painters and sculptors; public teachers; etc.), or having at least a two-year residency in a municipality, provided that an educational or professional capacity could be proven.^[3][4] In Cuba and Puerto Rico, the taxpayer quota requirement ascended to 125 Pt for both the territorial contribution and the industrial or trade subsidy.^[5][6][7]

For the Congress of Deputies, 111 seats were elected using a partial block voting system in 31 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 321 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, electors could vote for up to six candidates; in those with seven seats, for up to five candidates; in those with six seats, for up to four; in those with four or five seats, for up to three candidates; and for one candidate in single-member districts. Additionally, up to ten deputies could be elected through cumulative voting in several single-member constituencies, provided that they obtained more than 10,000 votes overall. 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.^[1][6][8][9]

As a result of the aforementioned allocation, each Congress multi-member constituency was entitled the following seats:^[6][10][11]

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. The provinces of Álava, Albacete, Ávila, Biscay, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Guipúzcoa, Huelva, Logroño, Matanzas, Palencia, Pinar del Río, Puerto Príncipe, Santa Clara, Santander, Santiago de Cuba, Segovia, Soria, Teruel, Valladolid and Zamora were allocated two seats each, whereas each of the remaining provinces was allocated three seats, for a total of 147. The remaining 33 were allocated to special districts comprising a number of institutions, electing one seat each—the archdioceses of Burgos, Granada, Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Cuba, Seville, Tarragona, Toledo, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza; the Royal Spanish Academy; the royal academies of History, Fine Arts of San Fernando, Exact and Natural Sciences, Moral and Political Sciences and Medicine; the universities of Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Havana, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Zaragoza; and the economic societies of Friends of the Country from Madrid, Barcelona, Havana–Puerto Rico, 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 of the first class; 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 (who were appointed by the Monarch).^{[1][12][13][14]}

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 21 August and 2 September 1881, which meant that the legislature's terms would have expired on 21 August and 2 September 1886, respectively. The monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.^[1][6][12] 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 31 March 1884, with the dissolution decree setting the election dates for 27 April (for the Congress) and 8 May 1884 (for the Senate) and scheduling for both chambers to reconvene on 20 May.^[15]

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.^[16][17]

← Summary of the 27 April 1884 Congress of Deputies election results →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote		Seats
		Votes	%
	Liberal Conservative Party (PLC)			342
	Liberal Fusionist Party (PLF)			43
	Dynastic Left (ID)			36
	Independent Republicans (R.IND)			9
	Possibilist Democratic Party (PDP)			3
Total				433
Votes cast / turnout		587,458	72.68
Abstentions		220,785	27.32
Registered voters		808,243
Sources[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]

← Summary of the 8 May 1884 Senate of Spain election results →

Parties and alliances		Seats
	Liberal Conservative Party (Conservadores)	140
	Liberal Fusionist Party (Fusionistas)	15
	Dynastic Left (Izquierda Dinástica)	8
	Possibilist Democratic Party (Posibilistas)	2
	Moderate Party (Moderados)	1
	Independents (Independientes)	4
	Archbishops (Arzobispos)	10
Total elective seats		180
Sources[32][33][34][35]

• Historical archive of deputies (1810–1977). Congress of Deputies (in Spanish).
• Elections in the Revolutionary Sexennium and the Restoration. Historia Electoral.com (in Spanish).