Spain's Restoration kept the peace for decades by rigging elections in turns
From 1874 to 1931, Spain's restored Bourbon monarchy bought stability with a remarkable fix: Conservatives and Liberals took turns in power by agreement, and local bosses called caciques manipulated the votes to match. The system brought comparative calm after nearly a century of upheaval, but it bred resentment that eventually swept the monarchy away.
It began on 29 December 1874, when General Arsenio Martínez Campos declared for Alfonso XII in Valencia, ending the First Republic. The young king, son of the exiled Isabella II, had been schooled at the Theresianum in Vienna and at Sandhurst, and was crowned early in 1875. The Constitution of 1876, which lasted the whole era, made Spain a constitutional monarchy with a Senate and a Congress of Deputies, and gave the king power to appoint senators.
The architect of the arrangement was the Conservative Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who alternated with Práxedes Mateo Sagasta's Liberals in what was called el turno pacífico. Its critics ranged from republicans, socialists and anarchists to Carlists and Basque and Catalan nationalists, and the rigging stoked regional nationalism and new labour organisations in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. Still, the relative calm earned Alfonso XII the nickname El Pacificador, the Peacemaker. He died in November 1885, and his son Alfonso XIII was born the following May, so his widow Maria Cristina ruled as regent.
In 1898 the Spanish–American War cost Spain Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, a heavy blow to national pride. The Rif War in Morocco, from 1920 to 1926, dragged down the economy and morale further, while unions such as the socialist UGT and anarchist CNT clashed with the government over deep inequality.
In 1923 Alfonso XIII accepted the military dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, binding the crown to it. After the defeat at Annual in Morocco and postwar economic turmoil, the general was forced out in 1930, and on 14 April 1931 the Second Republic was proclaimed; the king went into exile in Fascist Italy. Amid the political strain, Spanish art, literature and music enjoyed a revival.
Source: Restoration (Spain)
