Navarrese electoral Carlism during the Restoration
Carlism was the dominant political movement in elections in Navarre during the period between the Third Carlist War (ended 1876) and the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (began 1923).
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 electoral manipulations known as pucherazos.
[36] The period is closed by the 1916 elections, when the Carlists changed alliance strategy in order to regain Tudela and Tafalla districts;[37] they succeeded only partially.
It is marked by disappearance of the Integrists and a strategy of pivotal tactical alliances at the expense of clear political line, which triggered internal conflict within mainstream Carlism.
[39] The strategy did not produce the results expected; the Mellista secession added insult to injury, and the rise of new Basque, republican and socialist parties contributed to electoral decline of Carlism.
[43] The defense of local interests remained the single most constant feature of mainstream Navarrese Carlism electoral buildup, though even calls for restoration of the pre-1841 separate establishments have never amounted to endorsement of autonomous designs either for the province or for the broader Vasco-Navarrese region.
The issue remained a thorny question during the Alianza Foral period in the 1920s, undermining the Carlists-Nationalist concord and even producing internal divisions within Carlism itself.
[46] In the 20th century the Carlist propaganda was increasingly saturated with diatribes aimed against political corruption (presented as inevitable consequence of liberalism), and even against the electoral system itself.
[47] Another rising current was defense of legitimism, though references to dynastical claims were usually veiled and the party tried to avoid open challenge of the Alfonsist rule.
[48] The 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”.
One such group were the Conservatives; the most prominent of them was marqués de Vadillo,[52] considered a semi-Carlist candidate[53] and his cacique network occasionally dubbed carlo-vadillismo.
[72] Analysis of geographical distribution of Carlist support in Navarre reveals some general rules applicable through most of the Restauración period, though there were few shifting patterns traceable across specific parts of the province.
In general, Carlism recorded the highest success ratio in the electoral district of Estella (won 60% of mandates available), followed by Aoiz (40%), Pamplona (37%), Tafalla (25%) and Tudela (15%).
Until the late 1890s the movement fared rather badly in the mountains;[84] in Pirineos Orientales, dominated by the Valle de Roncal based Gayarre caciques,[85] the Carlists did not even bother to field a candidate.
In general, until the end of Restauración the Carlists did not dominate the Northern belt,[92] and it was sparse population density of this hilly region which worked to their advantage when aggregating the vote in the districts of Pamplona and Aoiz.
[94] Municipalities along the Lower Ebro did not display clear preferences until the 1910s,[95] though in Ribera Baja Carlism for decades maintained its insular fortress in the capital Tudela,[96] losing the city after 1910[97] and failing to retake it.
[100] The two who stand head and shoulders above are non-Navarros, Joaquín Lloréns Fernández[101] and Juan Vázquez de Mella,[102] who served 8 terms each as Navarrese deputies in the Cortes.
[115] Altogether there were 8 cases of Carlists gaining a mandate according to the notorious Article 29, i.e. with no counter-candidate standing: Lloréns from Estella in 1910, 1914 and 1916, Tomás Domínguez Romera from Aoiz in 1914, Vázquez de Mella and Sanchez Marco in 1910, Víctor Pradera in 1918 and Joaquín Baleztena in 1920 (all from Pamplona).
[117] The prevailing theory claims that Carlism thrived in rural areas with large commons and dominated by middle-size holdings, at least self-sustainable but usually able to enter the market exchange.
[118] This type of units provided economic grounds for peasant owners, the social base of Carlism, and was frequent in the Northern belt of Spain, typical in most of Navarre.
[119] Whenever this social group was giving way to owners of small, non-sustainable plots, landless peasants, tenants, rural workers and jornaleros – like was the case in the Navarrese Ribera, home to many local landowners – Carlism was losing its base.
At the opposite edge of the province, in the Pyrenees, low soil fertility and short vegetation periods reduced efficiency of medium-size holdings, leading to land shortage and the resulting tension, partially defused by emigration.
It is noted that Carlism was strongly related to religiosity, most fervent in the Northern provinces, and a dense parochial network, served mostly by clergymen originating from the same area, kept sustaining the movement.
[122] Population groups demonstrating religious indifference or outward hostility, like socially mobile middle-class professionals dominating culturally and politically in urban communities, are held responsible for trailing Carlist popularity in the cities and around,[123] leading even to emergence of an anti-urban thread within Carlism.
[124] Liberal influence of emigrees or returnees in the North, combined with first-hand experience of secular French state across the Pyrenees, is quoted as a possible reason for loose Traditionalist grip on the mountainous municipalities.
[129] Carlist historiography of the last decades seems marked by increasing skepticism towards socio-economic conditions being put on the forefront, now suspected of schematic Darwinism and oversimplifications.
One reviewer underlines emergence of works focusing on "microsystems of daily life", like collective mentality, religious and moral values, anthropological factors, customs, family interaction patterns etc.
