1901 Spanish general election
19 May 1901 (Congress)
2 June 1901 (Senate) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 402 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate 202 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Election results by constituency (Congress) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 19 May (for the Congress of Deputies) and on Sunday, 2 June 1901 (for the Senate), to elect the members of the 10th Cortes under the Spanish Constitution of 1876, during the Restoration period. All 402 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.
Since the Pact of El Pardo, an informal system known as turno or turnismo was operated by the monarchy and the country's two main parties—the Conservatives and the Liberals—to determine in advance the outcome of elections by means of electoral fraud, often achieved through the territorial clientelistic networks of local bosses (the caciques), ensuring that both parties would have rotating periods in power. As a result, elections were often neither truly free nor fair, though they could be more competitive in the country's urban centres where caciquism was weaker.
Conservative prime minister Francisco Silvela resigned in late 1900 as a result of social, political and ecclesiastical backlash resulting from both a tax reform adopted by finance minister Raimundo Fernández-Villaverde and the conflictive marriage between María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias, and Infante Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Práxedes Mateo Sagasta formed a new government in March 1901, the so-called "Electra cabinet"—in reference to the Benito Pérez Galdós's Electra play which caused a public uproar that hastened the fall of the previous cabinet led by Marcelo Azcárraga—and immediately sought a parliamentary majority for his Liberal Party by triggering a snap election.
The election resulted in a Liberal-dominated parliament that saw new parties such as the regenerationist National Union or the Catalan-based Regionalist League gaining seats for the first time. This would be Sagasta's final electoral contest, as he would resign as prime minister in December 1902 and die on 5 January 1903, aged 77, as a result of bronchopneumonia.