Spanish general election, 1886

← 1884

4–25 April 1886

1891 →

All 395 seats in the Congress of Deputies and 180 (of 360) seats in the Senate
198 seats needed for a majority in the Congress of Deputies

Registered

807,175

0.1%

Turnout

475,712 (58.9%)

13.8 pp

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Práxedes Mateo Sagasta	Antonio Cánovas del Castillo	Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla
Party	Liberal	Conservative	PRP
Leader since	1880	1874	1880
Leader's seat	Logroño	Cieza	None
Last election	40 seats	310 seats	Did not contest
Seats won	268	83	12
Seat change	228	227	12

Prime Minister before election

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta
Liberal

Elected Prime Minister

Práxedes Mateo Sagasta
Liberal

The 1886 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 4 April and on Sunday, 25 April 1886, to elect the 4th Restoration Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 395 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 180 of 360 seats in the Senate.

The Spanish Constitution of 1876 enshrined Spain as a constitutional monarchy, awarding the King power to name senators and to revoke laws, as well as the title of commander-in-chief of the army. The King would also play a key role in the system of the turno pacífico (English: Peaceful Turn) by appointing and toppling governments and allowing the opposition to take power. Under this system, the Conservative and Liberal parties alternated in power by means of election rigging, which they achieved through the encasillado, using the links between the Ministry of the Interior, the provincial civil governors, and the local bosses (caciques) to ensure victory and exclude minor parties from the power sharing.

The Spanish Cortes were envisaged as "co-legislative bodies", based on a nearly perfect bicameralism. Both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate had legislative, control and budgetary functions, sharing equal powers except for laws on contributions or public credit, where the Congress had preeminence. Voting for the Cortes was on the basis of censitary suffrage, which comprised national males over twenty-five, being taxpayers with a minimum quota of twenty-five pesetas per territorial contribution or fifty per industrial subsidy, as well as being enrolled in the so-called capacity census (either by criteria of Education or for professional reasons).

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