Electoral Carlism (Restoration)
Though Carlist minority in the Cortes remained marginal and its impact on national politics was negligible, electoral campaigns were key to sustain the party until it regained momentum during the Second Spanish Republic.
[4] Until the 1886 election the eligible voters were Spanish male citizens above 25 years of age with appropriate material status, i.e. those who paid annual fees known as “contribución territorial” in rural areas or as “subsidio industrial” in case of urban residents.
According to the turnista routine, elections were organized by one of two rotating pre-appointed parties, Conservatives and Liberals, to ensure their parliamentary majority; the objective was achieved by a wide range of manipulations known as pucherazos.
[15] The Traditionalist result is also much worse than this recorded by various and usually highly ephemeral parties and electoral alliances falling into the generic republican-democratic rubric;[16] on aggregate they won some 500 tickets.
[18] Traditionalist performance measured in terms of the number of voters is difficult to gauge due to different factors, ranging from fraud and manipulation to peculiarities of electoral arithmetic.
[22] Though hardly an imposing figure, even in the early 1920s the Traditionalist electorate was by far larger than e.g. the Socialist one, as until the advent of Primo de Rivera dictatorship PSOE did not manage to attract more than 40,000 voters.
[41] Demonstrating mutual and bitter hostility,[42] both groups considered traditional Carlist enemies lesser evil; Carlos VII and Ramón Nocedal alike instructed their followers to seek alliance even with the Liberals if that was to produce defeat of their ex-fellow brethren.
[45] Nevertheless, between 1891 and 1907 both branches combined failed to gather more than 10 MPs in one term,[46] the mainstream Carlism holding on aggregate 44 mandates and Integrism winning 12[47] The campaign of 1907 produced the best Carlist electoral score achieved during Restauración, which was the result of two factors.
Though the coalition fell apart few years later, it was in turn a rapid though ephemeral growth of the Valencian branch of the movement[50] combined with continuous supremacy in Navarre and rapprochement with the Integrists which allowed Carlism to occupy 10-12 seats in the lower chamber of the Cortes through most of the terms until 1920.
[52] In the traditional stronghold, Navarre, the policy of short-lived pivotal alliances – even with the Liberals[53] – bewildered the electorate, and Carlism lost its grip on the province.
[55] Finally, the growth of new rivals, Republicans and Socialists, started to undercut whatever electoral support Carlists still enjoyed in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
[57] Actually, it was the “Fueros” part of their ideario which was put on the forefront,[58] materialized as support for the Fueristas in the 1880s, local regional alliances of the 1890s, Solidaritat Catalana of 1907 or Alianza Foral of the 1920s.
However, support for traditional local establishments has never amounted to clear endorsement of autonomous designs for Vascongadas, Catalonia or any other region, which kept undermining the Carlists-Nationalist relations.
[60] Carlists tried to obtain an exclusive “Catholic” license from the hierarchy and criticized alleged abuse and inflation of the term, granted by the bishops even to Liberal candidates.
[63] Campaigns of Carlist candidates, always ultra-conservative and anti-democratic, at the turn of the centuries became even more reactionary and included increasingly frequent calls to defend traditional values against “red revolution”.
[64] In the late 1910s and early 1920s, with the Carlist policy of tactical alliances in full swing, they sidelined ideological threads again and shifted attention to practical issues.
The alliance pattern changed following the 1888 split; both groups considered each other primary enemy and contended with venomous hostility,[69] occasionally supporting even the Liberals.
[74] Provincial alliances under a broad monarchist-Catholic-regional umbrella continued until around 1915, concluded mostly with Integristas, Mauristas and independent candidates,[75] though there were skirmishes also among petty local Traditionalist factions.
[76] The last years of Restauración are marked by mainstream Carlism entering into pivotal tactical alliances, including those with the Liberals[77] and Nationalists,[78] concluded at the expense of the enraged Integristas.
[79] Measured in terms of the number of Cortes mandates won, geographical support for Carlism during the Restoration period remained extremely uneven; it was absent in most of the country, minor though rather constant in some provinces, and thriving only in one area.
[84] Within Navarre the Carlist stronghold was located in Estella district, the only one in the province (and one of 3 in Spain) where Carlism won on aggregate the majority of mandates available during the Restauración period.
[92] The regions where Carlism merely made its presence visible (1-3% of mandates available) were Old Castile and the Levantine coast, covering Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands.
[135] Some of the politicians who started their deputy career during Restoration served in the Cortes until the late 1960s, the best known case being this of Esteban Bilbao,[136] the future president of the Francoist quasi-parliament; his first and his last days in the legislative are spanned by the time distance of 49 years.
[148][citation needed] Many students striving to analyze the Carlist popularity (or lack of thereof) point to socio-economic conditions,[149] though conclusions offered by scholars from this school could be contradictory.
It is noted that Carlism was strongly linked to religiosity, most fervent in the Northern provinces;[157] destitute peasant masses in Extremadura, Andalusia or New Castile have largely ceased to be Catholic.
[158] Population groups demonstrating religious apathy or outward hostility, like socially mobile middle-class professionals dominating culturally and politically in urban communities during the early Restauración, are held responsible for trailing Carlist popularity in the cities.
[159] In the 20th century it was the class of industrial workers which became liable for growing secularization of large metropolitan areas and the Carlist lack of appeal in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Málaga, Zaragoza or Bilbao.
[160] The ensuing Carlist anti-urbanism[161] should not be applied universally, though; some scholars note that in parts of Spain like Galicia the movement was absent in rural areas and remained sustained only in middle-size cities,[162] like this of Ourense.
One reviewer[166] underlines emergence of “nueva historia política”, backed by focus on family interaction patterns, collective mentality, religious and moral values, anthropological factors like customs and other elements described as “microsystems of daily life”.
