1879 Spanish general election

← 1876 20 April 1879 (Congress) 3 May 1879 (Senate) 1881 →
All 392 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate 197 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies
Registered	952,000
Turnout	621,436 (65.3%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Antonio Cánovas del Castillo Práxedes Mateo Sagasta Manuel Alonso Martínez Party Conservative Liberal Left Parliamentary Centre Leader since 1874 1872 1875 Leader's seat Madrid Zamora Castrojeriz Seats won 288 64 13 Popular vote 402,357 139,314 20,473 Percentage 64.7% 22.4% 3.3%   Fourth party   Leader Alejandro Pidal y Mon Party Moderate Leader since 1876 Leader's seat Villaviciosa Seats won 11 Popular vote 16,501 Percentage 2.7%
Prime Minister before election Arsenio Martínez Campos Conservative Prime Minister after election Arsenio Martínez Campos Conservative

The 1879 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 20 April and on Saturday, 3 May 1879, to elect the 1st Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 392 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.^[1]

This was the first election held under the Spanish Constitution of 1876 and the new electoral law of 1878, which re-established censitary suffrage.

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.^[2][3]

The Spanish Cortes were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly perfect bicameralism. 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.^[4][5] Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of censitary suffrage, which comprised national males over twenty-five, being taxpayers with a minimum quota of twenty-five pesetas per territorial contribution or fifty per industrial subsidy, as well as being enrolled in the so-called capacity census (either by education criteria or for professional reasons).^[6][7]

For the Congress of Deputies, 88 seats were elected using a partial block voting system in 26 multi-member constituencies, with the remaining 304 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: 8 for Madrid, 5 for Barcelona and Palma, 4 for Seville and 3 for 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 and Zaragoza. The law also provided for by-elections to fill seats vacated throughout the legislature.^[8][9][a]

For the Senate, 180 seats were indirectly elected, with electors voting for delegates instead of senators. Elected delegates—equivalent in number to one-sixth of the councillors in each municipal corporation—would then vote for senators using a write-in, two-round majority voting system. The provinces of Álava, Albacete, Ávila, Biscay, the Canary Islands, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Guipúzcoa, Huelva, Logroño, Matanzas, Palencia, Pinar del Río, Puerto Príncipe, Santa Clara, Santander, Santiago de Cuba, Segovia, Soria, Teruel and Valladolid 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 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, 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, Cuba–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; as well as other high-ranking state figures—and senators for life (who were appointed by the Monarch).^[12][10][13]

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 monarch had the prerogative to dissolve both chambers at any given time—either jointly or separately—and call a snap election.^[14][9][10]

← Summary of the 20 April 1879 Congress of Deputies election results →

Parties and alliances		Popular vote		Seats
		Votes[b]	%
	Liberal Conservative Party (Conservadores)	402,357	64.75	288
	Liberal Left Coalition (Izquierda Liberal)	139,314	22.42	64
	Constitutional Party (PC)			49
	Democratic Progressive Party (PPD)			9
	Democratic Party (PD)			6
	Parliamentary Centre (Centro Parlamentario)	20,473	3.29	13
	Moderate Party (Moderados)	16,501	2.66	11
	Ultramontanists (Ultramontanos)	7,965	1.28	7
	Fuerist Party of the Basque Union (PFUV)	3,861	0.62	1
	Independents (Independientes)	22,729	3.66	6
	Other candidates/blank ballots	8,236	1.33	0
	Vacants	—	—	2
Total		621,436		392
Votes cast / turnout		621,436	65.28
Abstentions		330,564	34.72
Registered voters		952,000
Sources[15][16][17][18]

• Encasillado

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