1873 Spanish general election
A general election was held in Spain from Saturday, 10 May to Tuesday, 13 May 1873, to elect the members of the Constituent Cortes Generales#First Spanish Republic in the First Spanish Republic. 406 of 424 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election. The election in Cuba was indefinitely postponed.
The election was held with universal male suffrage. It was held in very unorthodox conditions and drew a very low voter turnout, as neither the Carlist or Alfonsist monarchists participated. The same happened with centralist and unitarian Republicans, or even the incipient labor organizations affiliated with the First International, who held a campaign of election boycott. This left the republic with a serious lack of legitimacy. The Federal Democratic Republican Party won the election.
Background
The political situation in Spain, worsened due to the outbreak of the Third Carlist War, the intensification of the Ten Years' War in Cuba, the breakup of the governing coalition—over frictions among its component factions, led by Prime Minister Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla and State minister Cristino Martos—and a conflict between the prime minister and the Artillery Corps, led King Amadeo I to finally abdicate the Spanish throne on 11 February 1873. As a consequence, the Spanish Cortes Generales#First Spanish Republic, reconstituted into a National Assembly in joint and permanent session, proclaimed the First Spanish Republic.Overview
Under the 1873 Agreement declaring the Republic as the form of Government, the Spanish Cortes Generales#First Spanish Republic envisaged under the 1869 Constitution were reassembled as a National Assembly in a joint and permanent session of both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. The electoral law of the Democratic Sexennium remained in force, with several amendments, including the abolition of the Senate and the conversion of the Congress into a constituent assembly.Electoral system
Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, which comprised all national males over 21 years of age and in full enjoyment of their civil rights. In Puerto Rico, voting was on the basis of censitary suffrage, comprising males of age fulfilling one of the following criteria: being literate or taxpayers in any concept.The Congress of Deputies was entitled to one seat per each 40,000 inhabitants or fraction greater than 20,000. 406 members were elected in single-member districts using plurality voting and distributed among the provinces of Spain and Puerto Rico in proportion to their populations. 18 additional seats were awarded to three multi-member constituencies in the island of Cuba, where elections were indefinitely postponed due to the military situation.
The law provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated in the Congress throughout the legislative term.
Eligibility
Spanish citizens with the legal capacity to vote could run for election, provided that they were not holders of government-appointed offices. A number of positions were exempt from ineligibility, provided that no more than 40 deputies benefitted from these:- Senior Administration chiefs residing in Madrid and with a yearly public salary of at least Pts 12,500;
- The holders of a number of positions: government ministers; general officers of the Army and Navy based in Madrid; the president and chamber presidents of the territorial court of Madrid; the rector and full professors of the Central University of Madrid; and first-class inspectors-general and chief engineers with residence in Madrid and a two-year seniority in office.