Chapter 355: A New Era

In February 1892, the cabinet elections in Spain attracted the attention of a large number of Spaniards.

This prime ministerial election was arguably the most intense since Carlos became the King of Spain, with multiple candidates enjoying significant support; it was no longer a situation dominated by a single party.

The Conservative Party candidate was Minister of Industry Hovelliar Soler, the Progressive Party candidate was former Deputy Prime Minister Ewald Bartel, and the Liberal Party candidate was Minister of Livelihood Alton Jarvis; all three candidates from these major parties had a reasonable chance of being elected Prime Minister.

Minister of Defense Evan Bradley was also a highly favored candidate, but those from a military background had no party affiliation; even if he became Prime Minister, he was destined to be an independent.

Although the Spanish people were very concerned about the cabinet election, their support or lack thereof could not influence the final outcome of the Prime Minister's position.

Spain utilized an indirect election system: the public in each state elected state representatives, who then elected national House of Representatives members, and subsequently, all members of the House of Representatives conducted the cabinet election.

The advantage of this was that almost everyone eligible for election was a capable representative; those without ability had already been filtered out in the first two steps.

The disadvantage was that the public had no decision-making power in the final step, though considering that the election of state representatives was fair and open, the Spanish public still held a certain degree of influence in practice.

Because it was only an election conducted by the House of Representatives, even if the cabinet election drew the attention of the entire nation, such an election would not last for a very long time.

On February 11, 1892, 298 members of the House of Representatives gathered at the parliament building; they would spend three days on the prime ministerial election and determine the final candidate for the next cabinet government.

Speaking of the current House of Representatives, since the beginning of Spain's administrative division reform, the House had been more or less affected.

Although the Conservative Party was Spain's largest party, the proportion of seats it held in the House of Representatives had declined. Over a decade ago, the Conservative Party could occupy over 49% of the seats in the House.

In recent years, the Conservative Party's seat share had fallen to around 44. %, holding only 132 seats.

Although the Conservative Party had influential cabinet ministers like Minister Hovelliar Soler in addition to Prime Minister Canovas, they could no longer achieve complete control over the House of Representatives.

The Progressive Party had been in a state of decline since Prime Minister Primo withdrew from politics, but after all, a lean camel is still bigger than a horse, and it remained Spain's second-largest party.

The Progressive Party held 82 seats in the House of Representatives, reaching a total proportion of 27. %. The leader of the Progressive Party was former Deputy Prime Minister Ewald Bartel; although he withdrew from the Spanish cabinet after failing his bid for Prime Minister in 1887, he was, after all, a high-ranking official who had served three consecutive terms as Minister of Finance and as Deputy Prime Minister. Ewald Bartel's political influence still existed, and some Spaniards who missed Prime Minister Primo also supported Ewald's bid for Prime Minister of Spain.

The Liberal Party remained Spain's third-largest party, but the gap between it and the Workers' Party had become negligible.

The Liberal Party held 29 seats in the House of Representatives, while the Workers' Party held 25, making them the only two parties with any influence in Spain besides the Conservative and Progressive parties.

The establishment of the Workers' Party had also effectively blocked the expansion routes of other small parties. The ideologies of the Conservative, Progressive, Liberal, and Workers' parties covered almost every path for legally establishing a party in Spain.

Only the Republican-style parties that opposed the monarchy remained without a corresponding party, but such parties were certainly illegal in monarchical Spain.

It was precisely for this reason that after the Workers' Party was founded, Spain vaguely trended toward having four major parties.

The development prospects for the remaining small parties were becoming increasingly poor; they could only choose to merge into other major parties or announce their dissolution.

Independents held 22 seats in the House of Representatives, and other small parties combined held only 8 seats, which was enough to show how difficult it was for these small parties to develop.

For Carlos, perhaps the fewer political parties Spain had, the more stable the country would be.

Originally, Carlos had planned for three major parties to take turns in power; after Carlos personally founded the Workers' Party, this idea transformed into four major parties alternating in power.

There would certainly be a party unable to form a cabinet for a long time, but the opposition party could also serve to supervise the cabinet government, and they were also a powerful guarantee for the stability of the situation in Spain.

Whether it was a three-party or four-party system, stability was certainly greater than that of a two-party system.

If only two parties were competing in elections, there would certainly be phenomena of opposing just for the sake of opposing. But if multiple parties were competing with each other, such phenomena could be prevented.

On the first day the cabinet election officially began, Carlos attended the meeting of the House of Representatives and emphasized the importance of fairness, justice, and openness before the election.

Carlos did not appear for the following two days of the election, which left the 298 representatives filled with all sorts of quarrels and debates regarding the process of electing the cabinet.

Finally, after three days, Spain's cabinet Prime Minister finally had a clear candidate.

Independent Evan Bradley was successfully elected as the Prime Minister of the Spanish cabinet government, which was also the first Prime Minister with an independent background since Carlos became the King of Spain.

Of course, everyone was also very clear about Prime Minister Evan Bradley's background. Rather than calling him an independent, it was better to call him a pure loyalist to the King.

Because Evan Bradley was born into the military, he had no interest in political parties and understood that he only needed to be loyal to the King to get what he wanted.

Come to think of it, Evan Bradley's successful election as Prime Minister could not have happened without the support of other parties.

Because the Conservative Party's seats had further declined, the Conservative Party could not form a cabinet on its own strength. This caused this cabinet election to become quite intense, and the prime ministerial candidates had no clear advantage in the first two days.

Because the Progressive and Liberal parties did not have a significant advantage, after they realized they could not obtain the position of Prime Minister, they turned to support the independent Minister Evan Bradley.

Everyone also knew that Carlos stood behind Minister Evan Bradley; supporting Evan Bradley was equivalent to supporting Carlos, which was certainly a profitable deal.

The support of the Progressive and Liberal parties instead made Evan Bradley the most advantageous prime ministerial candidate. Seeing that the general trend was gone, Minister Hovelliar Soler could only accept this result and support Evan Bradley to become the new Prime Minister of Spain.

Although Spain's several parties had a competitive relationship, they were not mortal enemies.

Since Evan Bradley had already gained the advantage, Hovelliar Soler naturally had no need to fight for the remaining sliver of a chance.

His concession also won Carlos's favor; on the day after Evan Bradley was elected as the new cabinet Prime Minister, Carlos appointed Minister Hovelliar Soler as the Minister of State of the new Spanish cabinet, which was the Deputy Prime Minister.

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

Unlike the period of Prime Minister Canovas where the Conservative Party dominated alone, the list of cabinet government members submitted by Evan Bradley to the House of Representatives contained several candidates from the Progressive Party, the Liberal Party, and even the Workers' Party.

Of course, there were also many familiar names in this cabinet government.

After Evan Bradley became cabinet Prime Minister, the position of Minister of Defense he had held became vacant. After an election by the Spanish National Defense Committee, Qiaoti was finally appointed to the extremely important position of Minister of Defense.

Qiaoti was the second son of Garibaldi; after following Carlos to Spain, he had served as the commander of the Guard Division, commander-in-chief of the Guard Army, and commander-in-chief of the Congo garrison. Spain's colonial merger plan was successfully realized through wars against African natives, the most important of which were the wars against the Sokoto Caliphate and the natives of the West African region; these wars were basically commanded by Qiaoti.

When serving as the commander of the Guard Division, Qiaoti was only a major general. When the position of commander-in-chief of the Guard Army was established, he was promoted to lieutenant general by Carlos.

Because of his immense military achievements in Africa, Qiaoti was not only promoted to the rank of general but was also awarded the title of Count.

Such a generous reward meant that Qiaoti would inevitably be promoted to the position of Minister of Defense; Carlos also needed to continue to have a capable and loyal Minister of Defense after Prime Minister Evan Bradley.

After Evan Bradley became Prime Minister, he would certainly have to cut ties with the military. Carlos would not allow the new Prime Minister to still possess huge power in the military; the new Minister of Defense had to be one of Carlos's own people, and also a general with considerable ability.

Currently, only Qiaoti met the requirements, which was why it was said that he would inevitably be promoted to the position of Minister of Defense.

The Minister of Finance was an old hand from the time of Prime Minister Canovas, Denis Bader, who, like Deputy Prime Minister Hovelliar Soler, came from the Conservative Party; this could be considered a consolation to the members of the largest party, the Conservative Party.

The candidate for Minister of Industry was a quite familiar name, Angelo Orcajo. He had made considerable political achievements while serving as the head of the Barcelona industrial zone, and after that, he successfully became the mayor of Barcelona.

For talents loyal to him, Carlos did not mind cultivating them vigorously.

The position of Minister of Industry was specifically reserved for Baron Angelo Orcajo; Carlos hoped that his ability in industry could be exerted on the biggest stage to contribute to Spain's industrial construction.

The Minister of Agriculture was still a candidate who existed in the previous cabinet government, the former Governor of the West African colony, Harrison.

This person was also a member of the Conservative Party and an old-school Spanish aristocrat who had gained Carlos's trust.

The candidate for Minister of Livelihood was a new name, Eli Verick, from the Liberal Party. Compared to the period of Prime Minister Primo, the current Liberal Party had undergone significant changes in its demands.

The current Liberal Party was more like a radical Progressive Party; they hoped for greater reforms by the government while tacitly ignoring reforms in democracy and political systems.

As long as they supported Spain's monarchy, Carlos accepted their relatively radical reformist ideas.

The Minister of Transportation was Elias Kent; he and the Minister of Education, Alan Carlton, both came from the Progressive Party, which could be considered as inheriting the ideas of Prime Minister Primo and continuing to pursue limited reforms.

The Minister of Health, Valentino Hernandez, came from the Conservative Party; during his previous term, he had made significant changes to Spain's medical environment, and his ability was worth affirming.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs was still held by Karel. Karel had also once hoped to become Spain's cabinet Prime Minister, but this so-called hope was clearly much smaller compared to the two most popular candidates, Evan Bradley and Hovelliar Soler.

Although he could not go further, serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the third term was clearly also good news for Karel.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs was a position he was familiar with, and he could continue to seek greater progress in the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Even if he could not go further, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs for three consecutive terms was a huge achievement for Karel.

In the future, after bidding farewell to the political arena, he would still be able to obtain a title through such achievements and become a member of the Spanish nobility.

In addition to the more conventional ministers of various departments, the Spanish cabinet ministers also included Minister of Colonial Affairs Menotti, Minister of Royal Affairs William, Speaker of the House of Representatives Ewald Bartel, Minister of Justice Benito Guerrero, and Archbishop of Spain Stide.

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

After the leader of the Progressive Party, Ewald Bartel, saw no hope in running for cabinet Prime Minister, he immediately shifted his goal to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

To a certain extent, the status of the Speaker of the House of Representatives was even higher than that of the cabinet Prime Minister.

After all, the cabinet government needed to be responsible to the House of Representatives, and matters involving the impeachment of cabinet members also required the Speaker of the House of Representatives to preside over relevant meetings.

It was just that in most cases, the status and prestige of the Prime Minister were far higher than those of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives was, after all, only an elected meeting moderator and could not change the voting results of the parliament on their own.

This also meant that unless the King was dissatisfied with the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House of Representatives had no way to target the Prime Minister.

Ewald Bartel was, after all, a politician from the same era as Prime Minister Canovas, and he was unwilling to become a subordinate of Prime Minister Evan Bradley, so he could only pursue a more independent cabinet position like Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives had the right to attend cabinet meetings and did not need to be responsible to the Prime Minister. In terms of status, the Speaker of the House of Representatives was on par with the Prime Minister, which, for Ewald Bartel, was already the most suitable position besides Prime Minister.

Although the election of the Prime Minister only took three days, the formation of the entire cabinet department took nearly a month.

Except for the Minister of Defense, 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 departmental ministers were quickly determined.

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

For example, the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives; even though Ewald Bartel was quite influential, it took him more than a week to stand out from the members of the House of Representatives and become the "controller" of one of the two houses.

When Carlos received this complete list of cabinet members, the Director of the Royal Security Intelligence Agency, Kadier, also submitted the specific information of these cabinet members to Carlos.

Regarding these cabinet members, Carlos was generally satisfied.

Most of them were familiar faces, and some less familiar faces, judging from the information, indeed had a certain degree of ability.

Those who elected and appointed them were not stupid; it was impossible to truly elect a cabinet minister without ability.

Just like Prime Minister Evan Bradley recommending ministers for various departments, he had to conduct detailed selections among various political parties to ensure that those he recommended were quite capable.

On one hand, these people would work under him in the future. Only if they were capable could he be a little more relaxed.

On the other hand, the ability of cabinet members also concerned the reputation of the cabinet. Those cabinet members without ability or with poor conduct would 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 Carlos with excitement, the Spanish cabinet was officially formed, beginning a brand-new era.

(End of chapter)