1936 Spanish general election

{{see also|Background of the Spanish Civil War}}

After the 1933 election, the Radical Republican Party (RRP) led a series of governments, with Alejandro Lerroux as a moderate Prime Minister. On 26 September 1934, the CEDA announced it would no longer support the RRP's minority government, which was replaced by a RRP cabinet, led by Lerroux once more, that included three members of the CEDA.Thomas (1961). p. 78. The concession of posts to CEDA prompted the Asturian miners' strike of 1934, which turned into an armed rebellion.Thomas (1961). p. 80. Some time later, Robles once again prompted a cabinet collapse, and five ministries of Lerroux's new government were conceded to CEDA, including Robles himself.Thomas (1961). p. 88. Since the 1933 elections, farm workers' wages had been halved, and the military purged of republican members and reformed; those loyal to Robles had been promoted.Preston (2006). p. 81. However, since CEDA's entry into the government, no constitutional amendments were ever made; no budget was ever passed.

In 1935, Manuel Azaña and Indalecio Prieto worked to unify the left and combat its extreme elements in what would become the Popular Front; this included staging of large, popular rallies,. Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two significant scandals, the Straperlo and the Nombela affairs. However, president Niceto Alcalá Zamora did not allow the CEDA to form a government, and called elections.Preston (2006). pp. 82–83. Zamora had become disenchanted with Robles's obvious desire to do away with the republic and establish a corporate state, and his air of pride. He was looking to strengthen a new center party in place of the Radicals, but the election system did not favour this.Brenan (1950). p. 294. Manuel Portela Valladares was thus chosen to form a caretaker government in the meantime. The Republic had, as its opponents pointed out, faced twenty-six separate government crises.Thomas (1961). p. 89. Portela failed to get the required support in the parliament to rule as a majority.Brenan (1950). pp. 294–295. The government was dissolved on 4 January; the date for elections would be 16 February.

As in the 1933 election, Spain was divided into multi-member constituencies; for example, Madrid was a single district electing 17 representatives. However, a voter could vote for fewer than that – in Madrid's case, 13. This favoured coalitions, as in Madrid in 1933 when the Socialists won 13 seats, and the right, with just 5,000 votes fewer, secured only the remaining four.Brenan (1950). p. 266.

File:Spain, electoral districts 1933-1936.jpg

{{rquote|right|Vatican Fascism offered you work and brought hunger; it offered you peace and brought five thousands tombs; it offered you order and raised a gallows. The Popular Front offers no more and no less than it will bring: Bread, Peace and Liberty!|One election poster.Thomas (1961). p. 92.}}

There was significant violence during the election campaign, most of which initiated by the political left, though a substantial minority was by the political right.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} In total, some thirty-seven people were killed in various incidents throughout the campaign, ten of which occurred on the election day itself.Payne, S.G. and Palacios, J., 2014. Franco: A personal and political biography. University of Wisconsin Pres. p. 101Tardío, Manuel Álvarez. "The Impact of Political Violence During the Spanish General Election of 1936." Journal of Contemporary History 48, no. 3 (2013): 463–485. Certain press restrictions were lifted. The political right repeatedly warned of the risk of a 'red flag' – communism – over Spain; the Radical Republican Party, led by Lerroux, concentrated on besmirching the Centre Party. CEDA, which continued to be the main party of the political right, struggled to gain the support of the monarchists, but managed to. Posters, however, had a distinctly fascist appeal, showing leader Gil-Robles alongside various autocratic slogans and he allowed his followers to acclaim him with cries of "Jefe!" (Spanish for "Chief!") in an imitation of "Duce!" or "Führer!".Brenan (1950). p. 289.Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Hachette UK, 2012. Whilst few campaign promises were made, a return to autocratic government was implied. Funded by considerable donations from large landowners, industrialists and the Catholic Church – which had suffered under the previous Socialist administration – the Right printed millions of leaflets, promising a 'great Spain'.Beevor (2006). pp. 34–35. In terms of manifesto, the Popular Front proposed going back to the sort of reforms its previous administration had advocated, including important agrarian reforms, and reforms relating to strikes. It would also release political prisoners, including those from the Asturian rebellion (though this provoked the right), helping to secure the votes of the CNT and FAI, although as organisations they remained outside the growing Popular Front;Thomas (1961). pp. 91–2. the Popular Front had the support of votes from anarchists. The Communist Party campaigned under a series of revolutionary slogans; however, they were strongly supportive of the Popular Front government. "Vote Communist to save Spain from Marxism" was a Socialist joke at the time.Brenan (1950). p. 307. Devoid of strong areas of working class support, already taken by syndicalism and anarchism, they concentrated on their position within the Popular Front. The election campaign was heated; the possibility of compromise had been destroyed by the left's Asturian rebellion and its cruel repression by the security forces. Both sides used apocalyptic language, declaring that if the other side won, civil war would follow.

File:Massive que, elections 1936.jpg

34,000 members of the Civil Guards and 17,000 Assault Guards enforced security on election day, many freed from their regular posts by the carabineros. The balloting on 16 February ended with a draw between the left and right, with the center effectively obliterated. In six provinces left-wing groups apparently interfered with registrations or ballots, augmenting leftist results or invalidating rightist pluralities or majorities.Payne, S.G. and Palacios, J., 2014. Franco: A personal and political biography. University of Wisconsin Pres. p. 102 In Galicia, in north-west Spain, and orchestrated by the incumbent government; there also, in A Coruña, by the political left. The voting in Granada was forcibly (and unfairly) dominated by the government.Payne (2006). pp. 174–5. In some villages, the police stopped anyone not wearing a collar from voting. Wherever the Socialists were poorly organised, farm workers continued to vote how they were told by their bosses or caciques. Similarly, some right-wing voters were put off from voting in strongly socialist areas.Brenan (1950). p. 300. However, such instances were comparatively rare.Thomas (1961). p. 93. By the evening, it looked like the Popular Front might win and as a result in some cases crowds broke into prisons to free revolutionaries detained there.Payne (2006). p. 175.

File:Spanish general election map, 1936.png

Just under 10 million people voted, with an abstention rate of 27-29 per cent, a level of apathy higher than might be suggested by the ongoing political violence.Payne (2006). p. 177.exact figures as to the number of voters, the number of electors and the turnout differ. The number of voters is quoted as 9.864.783 (Stanley G. Payne, Spain’s First Democracy, Madison 1993, ISBN 9780299136703, p. 274), 9.729.454 (Albert Carreras, Xavier Tafunell (eds.), Estadísticas históricas de España, vol. I, Bilbao 2005, ISBN 849651501X, p. 1098), 9.687.108 (Manuel Álvarez Tardío, Roberto Villa García, 1936, fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular, Barcelona 2017, ISBN 9788467049466, p. 412) or 9.572.908 (Juan J. Linz, Jesús de Miguel, Hacia un análisis regional de las elecciones de 1936 en España, [in:] Revista Española de la Opinion Pública 48 (1977), p. 34. Internet sources might provide even different figures, e.g. 9.792.700 (HistoriaElectoral website). The number of electors, e.g. Spaniards entitled to vote, is given as 13.578.056 (Álvarez Tardío, Villa García 2017, p. 412), 13.553.710 (Payne 1993, p. 274) or 13.338.262 (Carreras, Tafunell 2005, p. 1098). Accordingly, the turnout rate which emerges from these figures might be calculated as 72,97% (Carreras, Tafunell 2005, p. 1098), 72,78 (Payne 1993, p. 274) or 71,34% (Álvarez Tardío, Villa García 2017, p. 412). A small number of coerced voters and anarchists formed part of the abstainers. The elections of 1936 were narrowly won by the Popular Front, with vastly smaller resources than the political right, who followed Nazi propaganda techniques. The exact numbers of votes differ among historians; Brenan assigns the Popular Front 4,700,000 votes, the Right around 4,000,000 and the centre 450,000,Brenan (1950). p. 298. while Antony Beevor argues the Left won by just 150,000 votes. Stanley Payne reports that, of the 9,864,763 votes cast, the Popular Front and its allies won 4,654,116 votes (47.2%), while the right and its allies won 4,503,505 votes (45.7%), however this was heavily divided between the right and the centre-right. The remaining 526,615 votes (5.4%) were won by the centre and Basque nationalists.Payne, Stanley G. Spain's first democracy: the Second Republic, 1931–1936. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1993, p.274 It was a comparatively narrow victory in terms of votes, but Paul Preston describes it as a 'triumph of power in the Cortes'Preston (2006). p. 83. – the Popular Front won 267 deputies and the Right only 132, and the imbalance caused by the nature of Spain's electoral system since the 1932 election law came into force. The same system had benefited the political right in 1933. However, Stanley Payne argues that the leftist victory may not have been legitimate; Payne says that in the evening of the day of the elections leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes distorting the results; Payne also argues that President Zamora appointed Manuel Azaña as head of the new government following the Popular Front's early victory even though the election process was incomplete. As a result, the Popular Front was able to register its own victory at the polls and Payne alleges it manipulated its victory to gain extra seats it should not have won. According to Payne, this augmented the Popular Front's victory into one that gave them control of over two-thirds of the seats, allowing it to amend the constitution as it desired. Payne thus argues that the democratic process had ceased to exist.Payne, S.G. and Palacios, J., 2014. Franco: A personal and political biography. University of Wisconsin Pres. p. 105 Roberto García and Manuel Tardío also argue that the Popular Front manipulated the results,García, Roberto Villa, and Manuel Álvarez Tardío. 1936. Fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular. Espasa, 2017. though this has been contested by Eduardo Calleja and Francisco Pérez, who question the charges of electoral irregularity and argue that the Popular Front would still have won a slight electoral majority even if all of the charges were true.Calleja, Eduardo González, and Francisco Sánchez Pérez. "Revisando el revisionismo. A propósito del libro 1936. Fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular." Historia Contemporánea 3, no. 58 (2018).

File:1936 elections, Barcelona.jpg

The political centre did badly. Lerroux's Radicals, incumbent until his government's collapse, were electorally devastated; many of their supporters had been pushed to the right by the increasing instability in Spain. Portela Valladares had formed the Centre Party, but had not had time to build it up. Worried about the problems of a minority party losing out due to the electoral system, he made a pact with the right, but this was not enough to ensure success. Leaders of the centre, Lerroux, Cambó and Melquíades Álvarez, failed to win seats. The Falangist party, under José Antonio Primo de Rivera received only 46,000 votes, a very small fraction of the total cast. This seemed to show little appetite for a takeover of that sort.Beevor (2006). pp. 38–39 The allocation of seats between coalition members was a matter of agreement between them.Brenan (1950). p. 299. The official results ({{langx|es|escrutinio}}) were recorded on 20 February. The Basque Party, who had not at the time of the election been part of the Popular Front, would go on to join it. In 20 seats, no alliance or party had secured 40% of the vote; 17 were decided by a second vote on 3 March.Thomas (1961). pp. 93–94. In these runoffs, the Popular Front won 8, the Basques 5, the Right 5 and the Centre 2.Thomas (1961). p. 100. In May, elections were reheld in two areas of Granada where the new government alleged there had been fraud; both seats were taken from the national Right victory in February by the Left.

File:Granada, general elections of 1936.jpg

Because, unusually, the first round produced an outright majority of deputies elected on a single list of campaign pledges, the results were treated as granting an unprecedented mandate to the winning coalition: some socialists took to the streets to free political prisoners, without waiting for the government to do so officially; similarly, the caretaker government quickly resigned on the grounds that waiting a month for the parliamentary resumption was now unnecessary.Beevor (2006). p. 38 In the thirty-six hours following the election, sixteen people were killed (mostly by police officers attempting to maintain order or intervene in violent clashes) and thirty-nine were seriously injured, while fifty churches and seventy conservative political centres were attacked or set ablaze.Alvarez Tardio, Manuel. "Mobilization and political violence following the Spanish general elections of 1936." REVISTA DE ESTUDIOS POLITICOS 177 (2017): 147–179. Almost immediately after the results were known, a group of monarchists asked Robles to lead a coup but he refused. He did, however, ask prime minister Manuel Portela Valladares to declare a state of war before the revolutionary masses rushed into the streets. Franco also approached Valladares to propose the declaration of martial law and calling out of the army. It has been claimed that this was not a coup attempt but more of a "police action" akin to Asturias,Jensen, Geoffrey. Franco. Potomac Books, Inc., 2005, p.66 Valladares resigned, even before a new government could be formed. However, the Popular Front, which had proved an effective election tool, did not translate into a Popular Front government.Brenan (1950). p. 301. Largo Caballero and other elements of the political left were not prepared to work with the republicans, although they did agree to support much of the proposed reforms. Manuel Azaña was called upon to form a government, but would shortly replace Zamora as president. The right reacted as if radical communists had taken control, despite the new cabinet's moderate composition, abandoned the parliamentary option and began to conspire as to how to best overthrow the republic, rather than taking control of it. The military coup in Spain triggered the so-called ‘Spanish Revolution’, a spontaneous popular wave of collectivisation and cooperativism, engaging up to three million people, which was ignited by the victory of the left in the general election of 1936, a wave described by historian James Woodcock as “the last and largest of the world's major anarchist movements”.James Woodcock, Anarchism (1962), London: Penguin, 1970, 374)

File:Madrid, February 1936 elections.jpg

The below table summarises results of the first round, i.e. of the voting which took place on February 16. It does not take into account elections of the second round, which took place in 5 electoral districts (Álava, Castellón, Guipúzcoa, Soria, Vizcaya provincia) on March 1. It includes results in electoral districts (Cuenca, Granada), where results would be declared invalid, elections annulled and repeated in May.

The numbers given are votes, not voters. Each voter was entitled to vote for a number of candidates; the maximum number of selections allowed differed across the electoral districts, from 16 in Barcelona (city) to 1 in Álava, Ceuta and Melilla. All the selections made for individual candidates (there were 993 contestants running) are summarised. Example: Partido Republicano Federal fielded 3 candidates: Luis Cordero Bel on Frente Popular list in Huelva got 79.667 votes, Bernardino Valle Gracia on Frente Popular list in Las Palmas got 32.900 votes and José Bernal Segado running as independent in Murcia (city) got 1.329 votes, which produced sub-totals of 112.567 votes on Frente Popular lists and 1.329 votes for independents, which totals in 113.896 votes.

All tables purporting to present number of voters, which supported specific parties or blocs, are based on various statistical methodologies, constructed ex post by historians and intended to translate the number of votes into the number of voters; this applies also to tables presented in the section below.the most popular method of translating the number of votes into the number of voters is dividing the number of votes obtained in an electoral district by the number of votes an individual voter was entitled to cast. Example: in the province of Albacete there were 5 candidates running on the list of Frente Popular. The sum of votes cast for each of them is 284.181. In the province a single voter was entitled to cast 5 votes. The calculation is 284.181/5=56.836, i.e. it is assumed that in the province of Albacete, 56.836 people voted for Frente Popular. In districts where the block-voting pattern prevailed, this calculation is non-controversial. However, since split-voting was legally allowed, in districts where panachage was a noticeable phenomenon, this calculation might be misleading. Another problem is related to provinces, where a specific alliance fielded more/less candidates than the number of votes an individual voter was entitled to cast, e.g. in Navarre the counter-revolutionary block fielded 7 candidates while each voter was entitled to cast 5 votes. Also, while this method might work for calculating support enjoyed by electoral lists (which included a number of candidates), it is not suitable for calculating support obtained by individual candidates. Alternative methods are based on calculations related to the most-voted individual candidate on a given list, or on calculations based on average number of votes obtained by all candidates on a given list Their accuracy might be and is disputed.compare e.g. José Luis Martín Ramos, Mucho ruido y pocas nueces. La falsedad del fraude del Frente popular, [in:] Nuestra historia 3 (2017), p. 158; the author claims that Alvarez Tardio and Villa Garcia manipulate results by applying wrong calculation method and opts for a most voted candidate instead of an average The below table is not based on any such data manipulations and summarises number of votes received by individual candidates as recorded by electoral authorities.based on data as reproduced in Manuel Alvarez Tardio, Roberto Villa Garcia, 1936. Fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular, Barcelona 2017, ISBN 9788467054736, pp. 580-599

File:1936 Spanish general election - Detailed Results.svg

{{election table|title=Summary of the popular vote in the 16 February and 4 March 1936 Congress of Deputies election results{{cite web|url=http://www.historiaelectoral.com/e1936v.html |title=Votos por candidatura 1936}}}}

|-

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" colspan="2"|

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;"|Party

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;"|Abbr.

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;"|Voters

!style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;"|%

|-

|style="background-color:red" rowspan="3"|

|style="background-color:#E75480"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Popular Front (Frente Popular)

|style="text-align:right;"|FP

|style="text-align:right;"|3,750,900

|style="text-align:right;"|39.63

|-

|style="background-color:orange"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Left Front (Front d’Esquerres)Running only in Catalonia

|style="text-align:right;"|FE

|style="text-align:right;"|700,400

|style="text-align:right;"|7.40

|-

|style="background-color:red"|

|style="text-align:right;" colspan=2|Total Popular Front:

|4,451,300

|47.03

|-

|style="background-color:blue" rowspan="9"|

|style="background-color:#0000C8"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and rightCoalition of right-wing parties including CEDA in 30 constituencies

|style="text-align:right;"|CEDA-RE

|style="text-align:right;"|1,709,200

|style="text-align:right;"|18.06

|-

|style="background-color:#0000C8"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Radical Republican PartyCoalition of right-wing parties and the Radicals in 10 constituencies

|style="text-align:right;"|CEDA-PRR

|style="text-align:right;"|943,400

|style="text-align:right;"|9.97

|-

|style="background-color:#0000C8"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and centreCoalition of right-wing parties and the centre in 6 constituencies

|style="text-align:right;"|CEDA-PCNR

|style="text-align:right;"|584,300

|style="text-align:right;"|6.17

|-

|style="background-color:#008080"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Front Català d'Ordre - Lliga Catalana

|style="text-align:right;"|LR

|style="text-align:right;"|483,700

|style="text-align:right;"|5.11

|-

|style="background-color:#0000C8"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Progressive Republican PartyCoalition of right-wing parties and the PRP in 4 constituencies in Andalusia

|style="text-align:right;"|CEDA-PRP

|style="text-align:right;"|307,500

|style="text-align:right;"|3.25

|-

|style="background-color:#0000C8"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Conservative Republican PartyCoalition of right-wing parties and the PRC in Lugo and A Coruña

|style="text-align:right;"|CEDA-PRC

|style="text-align:right;"|189,100

|style="text-align:right;"|2.00

|-

|style="background-color:#0000C8"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Liberal Democrat Republican PartyRunning only in Oviedo

|style="text-align:right;"|CEDA-PRLD

|style="text-align:right;"|150,900

|style="text-align:right;"|1.59

|-

|style="background-color:#808000"|

|style="text-align:left;"|Spanish Agrarian Party (Partido Agrario Español)Independent, separate Agrarian lists only in Burgos and Huelva

|style="text-align:right;"|PAE

|style="text-align:right;"|30,900

|style="text-align:right;"|0.33

|-

|style="background-color:blue"|

|style="text-align:right;" colspan=2|Total National Bloc:

|4,375,800

|46.48

|-

|style="background-color:#3CB371" colspan=2|

|style="text-align:left;"|Party of the Democratic Centre (Partido del Centro Democrático)

|style="text-align:right;"|PCD

|style="text-align:right;"|333,200

|style="text-align:right;"|3.51

|-

|style="background-color:#008000" colspan=2|

|style="text-align:left;"|Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco)

|style="text-align:right;"|EAJ-PNV

|style="text-align:right;"|150,100

|style="text-align:right;"|1.59

|-

|style="background-color:#DC143C" colspan=2|

|style="text-align:left;"|Radical Republican Party (Partido Republicano Radical)Independent, separate Radical lists in Cáceres, Castellón, Ceuta, Málaga (prov.), Ourense, Santander, Tenerife, Las Palmas and Córdoba

|style="text-align:right;"|PRR

|style="text-align:right;"|124,700

|style="text-align:right;"|1.32

|-

|style="background-color:#0038A8" colspan=2|

|style="text-align:left;"|Conservative Republican Party (Partido Republicano Conservador)Running only in Soria

|style="text-align:right;"|PRC

|style="text-align:right;"|23,000

|style="text-align:right;"|0.24

|-

|style="background-color:#0073CF" colspan=2|

|style="text-align:left;"|Progressive Republican Party (Partido Republicano Progresista)Running only in Ciudad Real

|style="text-align:right;"|PRP

|style="text-align:right;"|10,500

|style="text-align:right;"|0.11

|-

|style="background-color:#92000A" colspan=2|

|style="text-align:left;"|Falange Española de las JONSRunning only in Oviedo, Sevilla, Toledo and Valladolid

|style="text-align:right;"|

|style="text-align:right;"|6,800

|style="text-align:right;"|0.07

|-

|style="text-align:left;" colspan=4|Total

|style="text-align:right;"|9,465,600

|style="text-align:right;"|100

|-

|}

{{Reflist|group=nb}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |title=The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939 |first=Antony |last=Beevor |author-link=Antony Beevor |location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=2006 |isbn=0-297-84832-1}}
• {{cite book |title=The Spanish Labyrinth: an account of the social and political background of the Spanish Civil War |first=Gerald |last=Brenan |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1950 |isbn=0-521-04314-X}}
• Ehinger, Paul H. "Die Wahlen in Spanien von 1936 und der Bürgerkrieg von 1936 bis 1939. Ein Literaturbericht," ['The 1936 elections in Spain and the civil war of 1936–39: a bibliographical essay'] Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte (1975) 25#3 pp 284–330, in German.
• {{cite book |title=The collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933–1936: origins of the Civil War |first=Stanley G. |last=Payne |author-link=Stanley G. Payne |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2006 |isbn=0-300-11065-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/collapseofspanis00payn }}
• {{cite book|last= Preston |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Preston|title=The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, revolution and revenge |year=2006 |edition=3 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=0-00-723207-1}}
• {{cite book|last=Thomas |first=Hugh |title=The Spanish Civil War |author-link=Hugh Thomas (writer)|year=1961 |location=London |publisher=Eyre and Spottiswoode |edition=1}}
• Vilanova, Mercedes. "Las elecciones republicanas de 1931 a 1936, preludio de una guerra y un exilo" Historia, Antropologia y Fuentes Orales (2006) Issue 35, pp 65–81.
• Villa García, Roberto. "The Failure of Electoral Modernization: The Elections of May 1936 in Granada," Journal of Contemporary History (2009) 44#3 pp. 401–429 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40543041 in JSTOR]
• {{cite book |title=1936. Fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular |first1=Roberto |last1=Villa García |first2=Manuel |last2=Álvarez Tardío|publisher= Espasa |year=2017 |isbn= 978-8467049466 }}

{{Spanish elections}}

General

Category:1936 in Spain

1936

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