Práxedes Mariano Mateo Sagasta y Escolar (21 July 1825 – 5 January 1903) was a Spanish civil engineer and politician who served as Prime Minister on eight occasions between 1870 and 1902—always in charge of the Liberal Party—as part of the turno pacifico, alternating with the Conservative leader Antonio Cánovas.

Mateo Sagasta was born on 21 July 1825 at Torrecilla en Cameros, province of Logroño, Spain.

After the Spanish Revolution of 1868, he returned to Spain to take part in the newly created provisional government.

Mateo Sagasta's political opponents saw his action as a betrayal of Spain and blamed him for the country's defeat in the war and the loss of its island territories in the Treaty of Paris of 1898.

[1] Mateo Sagasta died just a month after his last resignation, on 5 January 1903 in Madrid at the age of 77.