Práxedes Mateo Sagasta was appointed prime minister in March 1901 and immediately sought a parliamentary majority for his Liberal Party by triggering a snap election.

[6][7] Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage, which comprised all national males over 25 years of age, having at least a two-year residency in a municipality and in full enjoyment of their civil rights.

Additionally, literary universities, economic societies of Friends of the Country and officially organized chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture were entitled to one seat per each 5,000 registered voters that they comprised.

The monarch would 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.

[24] In March 1899, Conservative leader Francisco Silvela formed a regenerationist government that aimed at implementing a program of reforms to address the causes of Spain's decline as a nation—self-evidenced in the country's defeat in the Spanish–American War and the subsequent loss of the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific.

[25] However, Silvela was forced to resign as prime minister and cede power to Marcelo Azcárraga in October 1900, following the political and social backlash resulting from both the tax reform adopted by his finance minister, Raimundo Fernández-Villaverde—which, while intending to reduce the national debt caused by the war in Cuba, sparked a wave of protests and strikes—and the conflictive marriage between Princess of Asturias María de las Mercedes and Infante Carlos of Bourbon—whose father had fought in the Carlist side during the Third Carlist War.

[26][27] Further, the Carlist uprising of October 1900—an attempted armed insurrection originating in Badalona which spread to other towns in Spain—had led to the suspension of constitutional freedoms in a number of provinces until March 1901,[28][29] when the Liberal Party of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta took over.