Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 245 Cabinet Election (Happy New Year!)

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

Most Spaniards are proud of it. They are excited about the progress the country has made in the past five years and are more confident about the country's future.

As the king who proposed to make Spain great again at that time, Carlo was also fanatically loved by the people.

If many Spaniards did not believe that Carlo could lead Spain to greatness before, most Spaniards now believed that making Spain great again was not a simple slogan, but a reality that would soon be realized.

The people have confidence in the country's future development and are naturally more willing to work hard for the country's future.

After the meeting, the streets and alleys of Spanish cities were filled with headlines such as "Make Spain Great Again!" Some smart factory owners also set up such headlines and banners in their factories to encourage workers to work hard for the future of the country.

For those factory owners who are not too outrageous, the Spanish government generally turns a blind eye. After all, Spain's population is limited, which also means that the number of Spanish workers is limited.

If we want to effectively increase Spain’s industrial output, Spanish workers will have to suffer for the time being.

Of course, Carlo also has a sense of propriety. As early as the beginning of last year, at Carlo's suggestion, the Spanish Workers' Party was quickly established and attracted many workers to join in a short period of time.

The main purpose of the Workers' Party is to safeguard the interests of Spanish workers and fight against capitalists on behalf of the working class.

Such a party that can utilize the political power of the working class was naturally established by Carlo in order to guide the working class.

On the surface, the Spanish Workers' Party had no connection with the royal family and Carlo, but the leader and some key members of the Workers' Party were sent by Carlo.

The main task of these people is to rationally utilize the political power of the workers and at the same time deepen the contradiction between capitalists and workers.

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

The income and welfare benefits of employees of Spain's state-owned enterprises and royal enterprises are still relatively good. This also ensures that workers will not point their spearheads at enterprises established by the state and the royal family, but will only hate private enterprises that exploit workers' interests, that is, enterprises established by capitalists.

This is why the regional parliamentary elections have already ended, otherwise the Spanish Workers' Party would have been able to win some seats and thus qualify to enter parliament.

Even if there is only one parliamentary seat, the political power of the party is far greater than those without parliamentary seats. After all, only by entering the Spanish Parliament can one be nominated as a cabinet member. If the party cannot even enter the parliament, the party will have no sense of existence in Spain.

Judging from the current proportion of seats occupied by each party in the House of Representatives, most members of the next cabinet government will still be selected from the three major parties in Spain.

But unlike the last cabinet election, the Conservative Party has become the largest party in Spain, and the living space of the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party has been partially squeezed.

If Carlo had not intended to protect the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party, perhaps the Liberal Party would have soon withdrawn from the stage of history. Advocating freedom and civil rights in a monarchy is simply singing against the Spanish government.

If those radical republican democrats had not been purged long ago, Carlo would never have allowed the Liberal Party to continue to exist in Spain.

Once the Workers' Party wins seats in parliament, Carlo will stop protecting the Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party will then have only two choices: either be squeezed out of parliament by other parties, or completely abandon the ideas of liberal democracy and change into a moderate reformist party that tends to be conservative like the Progressive Party.

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

The good news is that Spain's various departments have performed quite well in the second five-year development plan, and the ministers of various departments have also made their presence felt in parliament.

Of course, these cabinet ministers also know the key to their re-election. The Conservative Party has become the largest party in Spain. As the leader of the Conservative Party, Deputy Prime Minister Canovas is also likely to become the prime minister of the next Spanish cabinet government.

This also means that the key to whether most cabinet members can be re-elected depends on Canovas' attitude. As long as Canovas becomes prime minister, whether everyone can be re-elected is just a matter of Canovas' words.

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

As Archduke Serrano is already old, the probability of Canovas taking over the position of prime minister is at least 100%, if not 90%.

The cabinet ministers do not have enough qualifications to compete with Canovas for the position of prime minister. If they want to continue to stay in the Spanish cabinet, they can only continue to stay in their positions by gaining Canovas' trust.

Of course, Carlo's attitude was also not to be ignored. Even Canovas was supported by Carlo, so the cabinet ministers naturally attached great importance to Carlo's attitude as the king.

In order to be re-elected, many cabinet ministers expressed their absolute loyalty to Carlo, which invisibly increased Carlo's power.

Unlike the period of Prime Minister Primo's rule when Carlo had little management power over the government, Carlo has great power in the current Spanish government, which also makes Carlo's actions much easier.

With the power in his hands, Carlo issued many policies, which greatly changed certain aspects of Spain.

One of them is Spain's public health policy.

Although Europe at that time was the most developed region in the world, the sanitary conditions inherited from the Middle Ages made European cities not so civilized.

Open defecation and littering are common in European cities. The phrase "London stinks of luxury" does not just describe London's smog, but also its poor sanitary conditions and the stench of feces and garbage everywhere.

This is not an exaggeration. Even in later times, some European cities still had the phenomenon of urinating and defecating in public.

If you are unlucky, you may not step on dog poop when you go out, but there is a high probability that you will step on human poop.

Carlo lives in Madrid, and although he doesn't want Madrid to become a city full of feces and garbage, when he first came to Spain, he suggested to Prime Minister Primo to strengthen the health control of Madrid.

During the ten years that Carlo was king of Spain, Spain built many public toilets in important cities such as Madrid, effectively reducing the behavior of urinating and defecating in public. In order to strengthen the supervision of uncivilized behavior, the Madrid City Government has formulated relevant punishment policies. People who urinate and defecate in the streets and alleys of Madrid will face fines of varying amounts at the lightest, and imprisonment of several months or even several years at the highest.

Since the policy was enacted, the streets of Madrid have indeed become much cleaner. Carlo also plans to promote this sanitation management policy to other cities in Spain, striving to make all cities in Spain become hygienic cities without feces and garbage.

After sanitary environment became an important part of the mayor's assessment, the mayor of Madrid has attached great importance to the sanitary environment of the streets and alleys in Madrid.

Carlo believes that as long as the relevant sanitary environment assessment is included in the performance evaluation of mayors of various cities, these mayors will definitely try every means to reduce the situation of urinating and defecating in public.

Of course, urinating and defecating in public cannot be simply prohibited. We also need to provide those who need to use the toilet with a place to go, that is, public toilets.

If we only know how to ban but not build more public toilets, it will only arouse public anger.

Carlo does not want the governments of these cities to implement a one-size-fits-all policy and ignore the wishes of the people just for the sake of their own political achievements.

After a month, the giant meeting room of the Spanish Parliament has reopened. During the meeting, members of the lower house will elect Spain's new prime minister, and members of the upper house will also elect Spain's new minister of justice and minister of colonial affairs.

Of course, the Military Council will also have to elect a new Minister of Defense, and Carlo will also have to consider the candidates for the Minister of Royal Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Spain.

Only when all these candidates are confirmed can the new Spanish cabinet government be formed.

It has been five years since the last cabinet government was elected, and the Spanish House of Representatives has also experienced two elections in these five years.

The current Conservative Party has successfully become the largest party in Spain, with a total of 146 seats, accounting for 49% of the seats in the House of Commons, crushing the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party on its own.

The Progressive Party retreated to the second largest party, with only 87 seats in the House of Commons, accounting for 29.1% of the total seats.

The Liberal Party still retains the title of the third largest party in Spain, but its seats are constantly declining. Currently, the Liberal Party only retains 27 seats in the lower house, accounting for only 9% of the total seats in the lower house.

Outside of the three major parties, there are several smaller parties that also hold cabinet seats, but none of them exceed double digits. Together, these parties hold about the same number of cabinet seats as the Liberal Party, with a total share of only 8.4%, or 25 seats.

In addition to these parties, there are 13 seats in the House of Commons that belong to independents. The decline of independents is to be expected, after all, the parties have a greater advantage in elections.

Political parties can obtain political donations from the public, while individuals cannot obtain political cash. Political parties can mobilize the joint efforts of many people, while individuals can 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 non-partisans in the past either joined one of the three major parties or founded their own parties. Few people continue to remain non-partisan.

It can also be seen from the proportion of seats occupied by the three major parties in the House of Commons that the Conservative Party has a huge advantage.

The Conservative Party already holds nearly half of the vote and only needs to gain about 30 more seats to become the Prime Minister of the Spanish Cabinet.

No other party can compete with the Conservative Party. After all, to become the Prime Minister of the Spanish Cabinet, one must obtain more than 60% of the votes.

The Conservative Party will not vote for its political opponents, which means that these parties have no other way to join the Spanish cabinet except to cooperate with the Conservative Party.

The cabinet election is a major political event in Spain, and Carlo, as the king, is of course involved in it.

The good news is that meetings of the House of Lords and the House of Commons are held in the Parliament Building, which allows Carlo to participate in elections for both the House of Lords and the House of Commons at the same time.

The House of Commons elects the Spanish Prime Minister, while the House of Lords elects the Spanish Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs and the Secretary of State for Justice.

Although not as important as the Prime Minister, these two cabinet ministers were still relatively important positions. The Secretary of State for the Colonies assisted Carlo in managing the affairs of the colonies and had a higher status than the Governor of each colony.

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

The Minister of Justice only needs to be responsible to the House of Lords and the King, and the purpose is to ensure the loyalty and reliability of the Minister of Justice.

Compared with the election of the House of Commons, the election of the House of Lords is also quite lively. Both houses have hundreds of members, and every election scene is quite lively.

However, compared to the House of Commons, the House of Lords is an institution that Carlo has complete control over. Carlo can even control the election results of two cabinet ministers.

The parliamentary election lasted a whole day and ultimately successfully elected the Prime Minister of Spain and several important ministers.

As expected, former Deputy Prime Minister Canovas successfully won the position of prime minister, and because he received more than 60% of the votes, he was given the power to form a cabinet alone.

This also means that the selection of the nine ministers of the Spanish cabinet government will be up to Prime Minister Canovas. As long as he is willing, any member of the House of Commons has the hope of becoming a cabinet minister with a very high status.

The election for the House of Lords ended earlier than that for the House of Commons, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for Justice were also selected early on.

The Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs was William, the former Governor of Cuba. He was familiar with several Spanish colonies and was also a member of the Spanish aristocracy, so his loyalty was relatively reliable.

The Minister of Justice was Manuel Dias Santos, a name that Carlo was familiar with, as he was unsurprisingly also a member of the nobility.

However, Manuel was not a member of the old-style aristocracy, but a member of the new-style aristocracy. Manuel was quite familiar with legal work, and he was a lawyer before entering politics.

Manuel's status as a noble and his past as a lawyer made him the Minister of Justice of Spain. Carlo did not think too highly of the Minister of Justice's ability. After all, the judiciary in Spain did not rely solely on the Minister of Justice, but also on the efforts of a series of institutions and personnel.

The position of Minister of Justice places more emphasis on loyalty. After all, it is completely independent of the cabinet government and can supervise Spanish officials and parliamentarians, as well as the public.

(End of this chapter)