Chapter 355: A New Era

In February 1892, Spain's cabinet election attracted the attention of a large number of Spaniards.

This prime minister election should be the most intense one since Gao Da became the King of Spain. There are multiple prime minister candidates who are highly supported, and it is no longer the situation where one family dominates.

The candidate for the Conservative Party is Industrial Minister Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier, the candidate for the Progressive Party is former Deputy Prime Minister Ewald Bartel, and the candidate for the Liberal Party is Livelihood Minister Alton Yarvis. The candidates of these three major parties all have a certain hope of being elected as prime minister.

Defense Minister Evan Bradley is also a highly favored candidate, but people from the military have no party. Even if he becomes prime minister, he is destined to be a non-party person.

Although Spaniards are very concerned about the cabinet election, their support or not cannot affect the final ownership of the prime minister candidate.

Spain adopts an indirect election system. People from state governments elect state legislators, then state legislators elect national lower house legislators, and then all lower house legislators conduct cabinet elections.

The benefit of doing so is that almost everyone who has the right to be elected is a capable legislator, and those who are not capable have already been screened out in the first two steps.

The disadvantage is that the public has no decision-making power for the final step. However, considering that the election of state legislators is fair and open, the actual Spanish public still has a certain influence.

Because it is only an election conducted by the lower house, even if the cabinet election attracts the attention of the whole country, such an election will not last for a long time.

On February 11, 1892, 298 lower house legislators gathered in the parliament building. They will unfold a three-day prime minister election and decide on the prime minister candidate for the final next cabinet government.

Speaking of the current lower house, since the reform of Spain's administrative divisions, the lower house has also been affected more or less.

Although the Conservative Party is Spain's largest party, the proportion of seats occupied by the Conservative Party in the lower house has declined. More than ten years ago, the Conservative Party could occupy more than 49% of the seats in the lower house.

And in recent years, the seat proportion of the Conservative Party has fallen to about 44.3%, only possessing 132 seats.

Although the Conservative Party has cabinet ministers with considerable influence such as Minister Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier in addition to Prime Minister Canovas, they have been unable to achieve complete control over the lower house.

Since Prime Minister Primo withdrew from the political stage, the Progressive Party has been in a stage of decline, but it is "a lean camel is bigger than a horse," and it is still Spain's second largest party.

The Progressive Party possesses 82 lower house seats, and the total proportion reached 27.5%. The leader of the Progressive Party is former Deputy Prime Minister Ewald Bartel. Although he withdrew from the Spanish cabinet after failing to run for cabinet prime minister in 1887, he was a high-ranking official who served as finance minister for three consecutive terms and served as deputy prime minister. Ewald Bartel's political influence still exists, and some Spaniards who miss Prime Minister Primo also support Ewald in running for Spanish prime minister.

The Liberal Party is still Spain's third largest party, but the gap between it and the Workers' Party has become negligible.

The Liberal Party possesses 29 lower house seats, and the Workers' Party possesses 25 seats. They are the only two parties with a certain influence in Spain besides the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party.

The establishment of the Workers' Party also almost blocked the route for other small parties to expand. The ideas of the Conservative Party, Progressive Party, Liberal Party, and Workers' Party almost cover all routes for Spain to legally establish parties.

Only the republican faction, such as the Republican Party, which opposes the monarchy, has no corresponding party, but such a party is definitely illegal in monarchical Spain.

It is precisely because of this reason that after the establishment of the Workers' Party, Spain faintly had the trend of four major parties.

The development prospects of the remaining small parties are getting worse and worse, and they can only choose to merge into other major parties or announce dissolution on the spot.

Non-party people occupy 22 lower house seats, and other small parties combined only occupy 8 seats, which is enough to see how difficult the development of these small parties is.

For Gao Da, perhaps the fewer the number of political parties in Spain, the more stable the country will be.

Originally, Gao Da planned for three major parties to take turns in power. After Gao Da personally created the Workers' Party, such an idea became four major parties taking turns in power.

There will definitely be a certain party that cannot form a cabinet for a long time, but the opposition party can also play a role in supervising the cabinet government, and they are also a powerful guarantee for Spain's stability.

Whether it is a three-party system or a four-party system, the stability is definitely greater than a two-party system.

If only two parties compete for election, there will definitely be phenomena of opposing for the sake of opposing. But if there are multiple parties competing with each other, such phenomena can be eliminated.

On the first day of the cabinet election, Gao Da attended the meeting of the lower house and emphasized the importance of fairness, justice, and openness before the election.

Gao Da did not show up for the election in the next two days, which also made the process of 298 legislators electing the cabinet full of various quarrels and debates.

Finally, after three days, the Spanish cabinet prime minister finally had a clear candidate.

Non-party person Evan Bradley successfully was elected as the prime minister of the Spanish cabinet government, which is also the first prime minister with a non-party background since Gao Da became the King of Spain.

Of course, everyone is also clear about the background of Prime Minister Evan Bradley. Rather than saying he is a non-party person, it is better to say he is a pure loyalist to the King.

Because Evan Bradley was born in the military, he has no interest in parties, and he also understands that he only needs to be loyal to the King to get what he wants.

Speaking of which, Evan Bradley's successful election as prime minister is also inseparable from the support of other parties.

Because the seats of the Conservative Party further declined, the Conservative Party could not form a cabinet by its own strength. This led to the cabinet government election this time becoming quite intense, and the prime minister candidate did not have a clear advantage in the first two days.

Because the advantages of the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party were not large, these two parties turned to support the non-party Minister Evan Bradley after they could not obtain the prime minister position.

Everyone also knows that Gao Da stands behind Minister Evan Bradley. Supporting Evan Bradley is equivalent to supporting Gao Da, which is definitely a guaranteed profit.

The support of the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party instead made Evan Bradley the most advantageous prime minister candidate. Seeing that the general trend was gone, Minister Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier could only accept this result and support Evan Bradley to become Spain's new prime minister.

Although several parties in Spain have a competitive relationship, they are not mortal enemies.

Since Evan Bradley has already gained an advantage, Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier naturally does not need to fight for the only remaining chance.

His concession also won Gao Da's favor. On the second day after Evan Bradley was elected as the new cabinet prime minister, Gao Da appointed Minister Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier as the State Minister of Spain's new cabinet, that is, Deputy Prime Minister.

The election of Prime Minister Evan Bradley is the result of the compromise of various parties, which also led to the quite complex composition of this cabinet government.

Different from the Conservative Party dominating during Prime Minister Canovas's period, in the cabinet government member list submitted by Prime Minister Evan Bradley to the lower house, there are several candidates from the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party, and even the Workers' Party.

Of course, this cabinet government also has many familiar names.

After Evan Bradley became cabinet prime minister, the position of Defense Minister he held became vacant. After the election of the Spanish National Defense Committee, Qiao Di finally served as the extremely important position of Defense Minister.

Qiao Di is the second son of Garibaldi. After following Gao Da to Spain, he served as the commander of the Guard Division, the commander-in-chief of the Guard, and the commander-in-chief of the Congo garrison. Spain's colonial integration plan was successfully realized by relying on the war against African natives, the most important of which were the wars against the Sokoto Caliphate and the natives in the West African region. These wars were basically commanded by Qiao Di.

When serving as the commander of the Guard Division, Qiao Di was only a major general. When the position of commander-in-chief of the Guard was established, he was promoted to lieutenant general by Gao Da.

Because of his great military exploits in Africa, Qiao Di was not only promoted to the rank of general, but also received the reward of a count title.

Such a rich reward means that Qiao Di will inevitably be promoted to the position of Defense Minister. Gao Da also needs to continue to have a Defense Minister with ability and loyalty after Prime Minister Evan Bradley.

After Evan Bradley became prime minister, he and the army must be cut off. Gao Da will not allow the new prime minister to have huge power in the military, and the new Defense Minister must be his own person in Gao Da's mind, and also a general with considerable ability.

At present, only Qiao Di meets the requirements, which is why he was inevitably promoted to the position of Defense Minister.

The Finance Minister is Dennis Barder, an old man from Prime Minister Canovas's period. This person, like Deputy Prime Minister Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier, comes from the Conservative Party, which can be considered as comforting the members of the Conservative Party, the largest party.

The candidate for Industrial Minister is a quite familiar name, Angelo Orcajo. He made considerable political achievements when serving as the head of the Barcelona Industrial Zone, and after that, he successfully became the mayor of Barcelona.

For talents loyal to himself, Gao Da does not mind vigorously cultivating them.

The position of Industrial Minister is specially reserved for Baron Angelo Orcajo. Gao Da hopes that his ability in industrial aspects can be exerted on the biggest stage and contribute to Spain's industrial construction.

The candidate for Agricultural Minister is still a candidate who existed in the previous cabinet government, former West African Colonial Governor Harrison.

This person is also a member of the Conservative Party and an old noble in Spain, and has won Gao Da's trust.

The candidate for Livelihood Minister is a new name, Eli Verick, from the Liberal Party. Compared to the Primo Prime Minister period, the demands of the current Liberal Party have changed significantly.

The current Liberal Party is more like a radical Progressive Party. They hope that the government will carry out greater reforms, and at the same time, they tacitly ignore reforms in democratic and political systems.

As long as they support Spain's monarchy, Gao Da accepts their relatively radical reformist ideas.

The Minister of Transportation is Elias Kent. He and Education Minister Alan Carlton both come from the Progressive Party, which can be considered as inheriting Prime Minister Primo's ideas and continuing to pursue limited reforms.

Medical Minister Valentino Hernandez comes from the Conservative Party. He had a relatively large change in Spain's medical environment during his previous term, and his ability is still worth affirming.

Foreign Minister is still served by Karel. Karel also had hope of becoming Spain's cabinet prime minister, but this so-called hope was obviously much smaller compared to the two most popular candidates, Evan Bradley and Huo Weiliyaer Suolaier.

Although unable to go further, serving as the third Foreign Minister is obviously also good news for Karel.

Foreign Minister is a position he is familiar with, and he can continue to seek greater progress in the position of Foreign Minister. Even if he cannot go further, serving as Foreign Minister for three consecutive terms is also a huge achievement for Karel.

After saying goodbye to the political stage in the future, he can still obtain the title of title by virtue of such achievements and become a member of the Spanish nobility.

In addition to the relatively conventional ministers of various departments, Spain's cabinet ministers also include Colonial Affairs Minister Menotti, Royal Affairs Minister William, Lower House Speaker Ewald Bartel, Justice Minister Benito Guerrero, and Spanish Archbishop Steed.

The two affairs ministers are still worth mentioning. Menotti was previously Royal Affairs Minister, and William was previously Colonial Affairs Minister. Their positions were actually swapped, mainly to exercise their abilities in different directions.

Progressive Party leader Ewald Bartel, after having no hope of running for cabinet prime minister, immediately changed his goal to the Speaker of the Lower House.

To a certain extent, the status of the Speaker of the Lower House is higher than that of the cabinet prime minister.

After all, the cabinet government needs to be responsible to the lower house, and involving the impeachment of cabinet members also requires the Speaker of the Lower House to preside over relevant meetings.

It's just that in most cases, the status and nobility of the prime minister are far higher than that of the Speaker of the Lower House.

The Speaker of the Lower House is just an elected meeting host and cannot change the voting results of the parliament by his own strength.

This also means that unless the King is dissatisfied with the prime minister, the Speaker of the Lower House has no way to target the prime minister.

Ewald Bartel is a politician of the same era as Prime Minister Canovas after all, and he is not willing to become a subordinate of Prime Minister Evan Bradley, so he can only pursue a more independent cabinet position such as Speaker of the Lower House.

The Speaker of the Lower House has the right to attend cabinet meetings and does not need to be responsible to the prime minister. In terms of status, the Speaker of the Lower House is on par with the prime minister, which is already the most suitable position for Ewald Bartel besides the prime minister.

Although the prime minister election only experienced three days, the formation of the entire cabinet department took nearly a month.

Except for the Defense Minister, the ministers of all departments were appointed by the prime minister himself. Because Prime Minister Evan Bradley submitted the list on the second day, the candidates for these department ministers were quickly determined.

But the candidates for other relatively special cabinet members took more than half a month to settle.

For example, the election of the Speaker of the Lower House, even if Ewald Bartel has considerable influence, it took more than a week to stand out from the legislators of the lower house and become the "controller" of one of the two houses.

When Gao Da received this complete cabinet member list, Royal Security Intelligence Bureau Director Kadier also submitted the specific information of these cabinet members to Gao Da.

For these cabinet members, Gao Da was generally satisfied.

Most of them are familiar faces, and some unfamiliar faces, judging from the information, they do have certain abilities.

The people who elected and appointed them are not stupid, and it is impossible to really elect a cabinet minister without ability.

Just like Evan Bradley recommending ministers of various departments, he must conduct detailed selection among various political parties to ensure that those he recommends are quite capable.

On the one hand, these people will work under his hands in the future. Only if they have ability can he be a little easier.

On the other hand, the ability of cabinet members is also related to the reputation of the cabinet. Those cabinet ministers without ability or with bad conduct will only damage the reputation of the Spanish cabinet and reduce the public's trust in the government.

On March 21, 1892, after a group of cabinet members swore allegiance to Gao Da with excitement, the Spanish cabinet was officially formed and started a brand-new era.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 356 =====