Chapter 247: Cabinet Election (Happy New Year!)

After the report meeting for the second five-year plan concluded, the relevant information mentioned by various government departments immediately became the most discussed news in Spain.

Most Spaniards were proud of it; they were quite excited about the progress the country had made over these five years and were even more confident in the nation's future.

As the King who had proposed making Spain great again at the time, Gao Da was also met with the fanatical adoration of the public.

If there were many Spaniards who did not believe Gao Da could lead Spain toward greatness before, then at this moment, most Spaniards believed that making Spain great again was not a simple slogan, but a reality that would soon be realized.

With confidence in the future development of the country, the public was naturally more willing to put forth their own efforts for the nation's future.

After this meeting ended, headlines and related content such as "Make Spain Great Again!" were everywhere in the streets and alleys of Spanish cities; some clever factory owners also put up such titles and banners inside their factories to encourage workers to exert themselves for the country's future.

For those factory owners who were not too outrageous, the Spanish government generally adopted an attitude of turning a blind eye. After all, Spain's population was limited, which also meant that the number of Spanish workers was limited.

To effectively increase Spain's industrial output, the Spanish workers still had to suffer a bit for the time being.

Of course, Gao Da also had a sense of proportion. As early as the beginning of last year, under Gao Da's suggestion, the Spanish Workers' Party was quickly established and absorbed many workers in a short period of time.

The main purpose of the Workers' Party was to safeguard the interests of Spanish workers and to act on behalf of the working class in their struggle against the capitalists.

Such a party capable of utilizing the political power of the working class was naturally established by Gao Da to guide the working class.

On the surface, the Spanish Workers' Party had no connection with the royal family or Gao Da, but the party leader and some key members were all sent there by Gao Da.

The main task of these people was to reasonably utilize the political power of the workers while deepening the contradictions between capitalists and workers.

Of course, the capitalists here referred to private capitalists, not state-owned capital.

The income and welfare benefits for employees of Spanish state-owned enterprises and royal enterprises were relatively good, which ensured that workers would not point their spears at the state or enterprises established by the royal family, but would only hate those private enterprises that exploited workers' interests—that is, enterprises established by capitalists.

It was precisely because the parliamentary elections in the major regions had already ended; otherwise, the Spanish Workers' Party could have also won some seats and thus gained the qualifications to enter the parliament.

Even with only one parliamentary seat, a party's political power is far greater than those parties without parliamentary seats. After all, only by entering the Spanish parliament does one have the qualification to be nominated as a cabinet member; if a party cannot even enter the parliament, it has no sense of presence in Spain.

Currently, judging from the proportion of seats occupied by various parties in the lower house, most members of the next cabinet government would still be selected from the three major Spanish parties.

But unlike the last cabinet election, the Conservative Party had already become the largest party in Spain, and the living space of the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party had been squeezed to some extent.

If it were not for Gao Da intentionally protecting the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party, perhaps the Liberal Party would soon exit the historical stage. Advocating for liberal rights and civil rights in a monarchy was simply going against the Spanish government.

If it were not for the fact that those radical republican democrats had already been purged once, Gao Da would absolutely not have allowed the Liberal Party to continue existing in Spain.

Once the Workers' Party gained parliamentary seats, Gao Da would stop protecting the Liberal Party.

At that time, the Liberal Party would only have two choices: either be jointly squeezed out of parliament by other parties, or completely abandon the ideology of liberal democracy and change into a moderate reformist faction inclined toward conservatism, like the Progressive Party.

The Spanish government in 1879 was definitely quite busy. Less than a month after the summary report meeting of the second five-year development plan concluded, it ushered in a new round of elections for the Spanish cabinet government.

The good news was that the performance of various Spanish departments in the second five-year development plan was quite good, and the ministers of each department also made their presence felt in the parliament.

Of course, these cabinet ministers also knew where the key to their reappointment lay. The current Conservative Party had already become the largest party in Spain, and as the leader of the Conservative Party, Deputy Prime Minister Canovas also had high hopes of becoming the Prime Minister of the next Spanish cabinet government.

This also meant that the key to whether most cabinet members could be reappointed depended on Canovas's attitude. As long as Canovas became Prime Minister, whether everyone could be reappointed would just be a matter of a single word from Canovas.

As early as last year, the cabinet ministers had already strengthened their ties with Deputy Prime Minister Canovas. They were not stupid; they naturally knew the reason why Canovas was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister.

With Grand Duke Serrano already aged, the probability of Canovas succeeding to the position of Prime Minister was at least 90%, if not 100%.

The cabinet ministers did not have enough seniority to compete with Canovas for the position of Prime Minister; if they wanted to remain in the Spanish cabinet, they could only stay in their positions by gaining Canovas's trust.

Of course, Gao Da's attitude could not be ignored either. Even Canovas himself was supported by Gao Da; the cabinet ministers naturally attached great importance to the attitude of Gao Da, who was the King.

In order to be reappointed, many cabinet ministers expressed their absolute loyalty to Gao Da one after another, which also invisibly increased Gao Da's power slightly.

Unlike the period of Prime Minister Primo's rule when Gao Da had little management power over the government, Gao Da possessed immense power in the current Spanish government, which also made Gao Da's actions much more convenient.

Relying on the power in his hands, Gao Da promulgated many policies, and these policies also caused great changes in certain aspects of Spain.

One of these points was the policy regarding Spanish public health.

Although Europe in this era was the most developed region in the world, the sanitary conditions inherited from the Middle Ages meant that European cities were not exactly civilized.

Defecating and urinating anywhere and littering were common sights in European cities; "fragrant carriages and fine wine, smelly London" described not only London's smog, but also the terrible sanitary conditions and the stench of feces and garbage everywhere in London.

This was actually not an exaggeration. Even in later generations, the phenomenon of defecating and urinating in public still existed in some European cities.

If one was unlucky, one might not step on dog feces when going out, but there was a high probability of stepping on human feces.

Gao Da lived in Madrid, though he did not want Madrid to become a city full of feces and garbage. As early as when Gao Da first arrived in Spain, he had suggested that Prime Minister Primo strengthen sanitary control over Madrid.

In the ten years since Gao Da became the King of Spain, Spain had built many public toilets in important cities like Madrid, effectively reducing the behavior of defecating and urinating in public places.

To strengthen the supervision of uncivilized behavior, the Madrid municipal government even formulated relevant punishment policies. People who defecated or urinated in the streets and alleys of Madrid would face fines of varying amounts at the lightest, and imprisonment for several months or even several years at the heaviest.

Since such policies were promulgated, the streets of Madrid had indeed become much cleaner. Gao Da also planned to promote such sanitary management policies to other cities in Spain, striving to make all cities in Spain sanitary cities without feces and garbage.

After the sanitary environment became an important part of the mayor's assessment, the Mayor of Madrid began to attach great importance to the sanitary environment of Madrid's streets and alleys.

Gao Da believed that as long as relevant sanitary environment assessments were added to the performance evaluations of mayors of various cities, these mayors would certainly try every possible means to reduce the situation of defecating and urinating in public.

Of course, defecating and urinating in public could not just be prohibited; places to use the toilet, namely public toilets, had to be provided for those who had the need.

If one only knew how to prohibit but did not know how to build more public toilets, this would only incite the anger of the public.

Gao Da did not want the governments of these cities to implement a "one-size-fits-all" policy, disregarding the wishes of the public just for their own political achievements.

After a month, the giant conference room of the Spanish Parliament reopened. The members of the lower house were to elect the new Prime Minister of Spain during the meeting, and the members of the upper house were also to elect the new Minister of Justice and Minister of Colonial Affairs for Spain.

Of course, the Military Committee also had to elect a new Minister of Defense, and Gao Da also had to consider the candidates for the Minister of Royal Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister.

Only after all these candidates were determined could the new Spanish cabinet government be considered fully formed.

Five years had passed since the last cabinet government election, and the Spanish lower house had also undergone two elections during these five years.

The current Conservative Party had successfully become the largest party in Spain, possessing a full 146 seats, accounting for 49% of the lower house seats, crushing the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party with its own strength.

The Progressive Party retreated to become the second-largest party, with only 87 seats left in the lower house, accounting for 29. % of the total seats.

The Liberal Party still retained the title of the third-largest party in Spain, but the Liberal Party's seats were constantly declining. Currently, the Liberal Party only retained 27 lower house seats, accounting for only 9% of the total lower house seats.

Outside of the three major parties, several small-scale parties also held cabinet seats, but the numbers did not exceed double digits. The total number of cabinet seats for these parties combined was about the same as the Liberal Party, with a total proportion of only 8. %, which was 25 seats.

Besides these parties, there were also 13 seats in the lower house belonging to independent individuals. The decline of independent individuals was to be expected; after all, parties had a greater advantage in elections.

Parties could obtain political donations from the public, while individuals could not. Parties could gather the collective efforts of many people, while individuals could only rely on their own efforts.

In the political arena of any country, the political power of parties is far greater than that of individuals. Many previous independent individuals either joined one of the three major parties or established their own parties; very few continued to maintain their independent status.

From the proportion of seats occupied by the three major parties in the lower house, it could also be seen that the Conservative Party held a huge advantage.

The Conservative Party's own proportion was already close to half; it only needed to win about 30 more seats to obtain the position of Prime Minister of the Spanish cabinet.

Any other party could not compete with the Conservative Party; after all, to obtain the position of Prime Minister of the Spanish cabinet, one had to obtain more than 60% of the vote support.

The Conservative Party would not vote for its political enemies, which also meant that these parties had no other way to join the Spanish cabinet except by choosing to cooperate with the Conservative Party.

The cabinet election was a relatively major political activity in Spain, and Gao Da, as the King, naturally participated in it as well.

The good news was that the meetings of the upper house and the lower house were both held in the parliament building, which also allowed Gao Da to participate in the elections of both the upper and lower houses simultaneously.

The lower house was electing the Prime Minister of the Spanish cabinet, while the upper house was electing the Minister of Colonial Affairs and the Minister of Justice for Spain.

Although not as important as the Prime Minister, these two cabinet minister positions were still relatively important. The Minister of Colonial Affairs assisted Gao Da in managing colonial affairs, and their status was higher than that of the viceroys of each colony.

The Minister of Justice was the highest leader of the Spanish judiciary and, like the Minister of Royal Affairs, was not subject to the control of the Spanish cabinet government.

The Minister of Justice only needed to be responsible to the upper house and the King, the purpose of which was also to ensure the loyalty and reliability of the Minister of Justice.

Compared to the election of the lower house, the election of the upper house was also quite lively. Both of these houses had hundreds of members, and the scene of every election was quite lively.

It was just that compared to the lower house, the upper house was an institution completely controlled by Gao Da; Gao Da could even control the election results of the two cabinet ministers.

The parliamentary election lasted for a whole day, and in the end, the Prime Minister of Spain and several important cabinet ministers were successfully elected.

As expected, the former Deputy Prime Minister Canovas successfully won the position of Prime Minister, and because the vote count exceeded 60%, he obtained the power to form the cabinet alone.

This also meant that the candidates for the nine department ministers of the Spanish cabinet government would be at the whim of Prime Minister Canovas. As long as he was willing, any member of the lower house had the hope of becoming a cabinet minister with a very high status.

The election of the upper house ended earlier than the election of the lower house, and the Minister of Colonial Affairs and the Minister of Justice also had candidates early on.

Serving as the Minister of Colonial Affairs was the former Viceroy of Cuba, William, who was relatively familiar with Spain's several colonies and also belonged to the Spanish nobility; his loyalty was quite reliable.

Serving as the Minister of Justice was Manuel Diaz Santos. Gao Da was also relatively familiar with this name; he was, as expected, also a member of the nobility.

However, Manuel was not an old-style noble, but a member of the new-style nobility. Manuel was still relatively familiar with legal work; he was a lawyer before entering the political arena.

The status of nobility plus the fact that he was once a lawyer allowed Manuel to successfully become the Minister of Justice of Spain. Gao Da did not place too much importance on the ability of the Minister of Justice either; after all, the Spanish judiciary did not rely solely on the Minister of Justice, but also had the efforts of a series of institutions and personnel.

The position of Minister of Justice placed more importance on loyalty; after all, it was completely independent of the cabinet government and could play a supervisory role over Spanish officials and members of parliament, and could also play a supervisory role over the private sector.

(End of this chapter)