Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 318 Recommendation Election System

Carlo stayed in Barcelona for two days and then left to inspect other cities.

As the King of Spain, Carlo has the most palaces in Spain among all the nobles. In addition to the largest palace in Madrid, Carlo also owns a large number of palaces, castles, manors and other buildings all over Spain, so he does not have to worry about housing problems anywhere.

In Barcelona, ​​Carlo also owns a small palace. Although it is not very large, it is more than enough to accommodate the entire royal family.

There are many buildings similar to the Royal Palace of Barcelona all over Spain. They were built by rulers in different years in Spanish history and are now Carlo’s private property.

How many palaces did Carlo own? In the vicinity of Madrid alone, excluding the Royal Palace of Madrid, Carlo still owns 1 palace, 2 castles and 2 manors.

These more secretive castles and palaces are the private residences of members of the royal family, which can protect their privacy to a greater extent.

Although the size and luxury of the Royal Palace of Madrid are unparalleled in Spain, due to its location in the center of Madrid, there is not much guarantee in terms of privacy.

What happened in the palace could easily spread throughout Madrid, which was unfriendly to the royal family. Some more remote estates and castles provided them with more options.

Heading west from Barcelona, ​​Carlo successively arrived in Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, Pamplona, ​​the capital of Navarra, Oviedo, the capital of Asturias, and Santiago, the capital of Galicia. He then took a train through Castile and León, stayed in its capital Valladolid for half a day, and then returned to the capital Madrid.

During this tour, Carlo visited most of the administrative regions in Spain. Except for the Balearic and Canary Islands, as well as Extremadura and Andalusia, all administrative regions in Spain were within the scope of Carlo's inspection.

The entire inspection lasted for more than a month and the results were quite good. In states with relatively large changes, such as Barcelona, ​​Navarra and Asturias, the merger and reorganization plans of the state governments have been largely completed.

Of particular note are the governments of Navarra and Asturias.

These two states are the result of the merger of two or three regions, so the state governments naturally have to be mixed with the original three regional governments.

Including the state legislatures of these two states, and merging the legislatures of other regions, is a rather complicated task.

The positions of state government officials and seats in the state legislature are both headaches for each state.

These problems also hindered the reform of administrative divisions. Carlo personally visited these states and dealt with the problems in these states to a certain extent before the political division reforms in each state could proceed smoothly.

The first is the state of Navarra, which was formed by the merger of three regions. The task of establishing a state government and state parliament is the most difficult.

Of the three regions that make up the state of Navarra, two are populated by Basques. Logically, most of the government officials in Navarra should be Basques, and the same should be true for the state assembly.

But it is obvious that since Navarre is named Navarre instead of Basque, it naturally represents that the Spanish government does not want the Basques to have too many parliamentary seats.

Disputes between local Basques and Spaniards also led to a stalemate in the formation of the Navarra state government and state parliament, and the merger of the three regions became quite slow.

After Carlo arrived in Pamplona, ​​the capital of Navarra, he not only personally inquired about the establishment of the state government and parliament, but also dealt with some issues in the establishment work.

For example, the issue of parliamentary seats. The newly merged state of Navarra will not accept all the members of the original three regions, but will re-hold parliamentary elections across the state to elect new members of the Navarra state parliament.

As for the government officials of Navarra, they are mainly the government officials of Navarra. The governors of Basque Country and La Rioja will temporarily serve as deputy governors of Navarra, and will wait for the next gubernatorial election to make relevant position changes.

For the Basques, Carlo's arrangement was definitely bad news. But the problem was that because Carlo was in charge, it was difficult for them to resist Carlo's arrangement.

Carlo's arrangement was not directed against the Basques without any reason.

The merged state of Navarra has a population of 151 million, of which there are less than 70 Basques.

Basques make up less than half of the population, so what reason do they have to demand a majority of seats in parliament? Moreover, the name of the new state is Navarra, and it is normal that the state government is mainly composed of government officials from the original Navarra region.

The original Basque Region belonged to the merged party, so it is naturally impossible for officials from the Basque Region to become the main body of the new Navarre State.

Carlo spent the longest time in Navarra, staying for about a week.

It turned out that Carlo's presence was indeed effective. When Carlo left Navarra, the local state government had been successfully established and the election of the state assembly was also being prepared.

It is expected that the state legislature of Navarre will hold re-elections within the next month to decide the ownership of the state legislature seats.

Compared to Navarra, the situation in Asturias is much better.

Although both are the result of the merger of two or more regions, the situation in Asturias is clearer.

The original Asturias region had a population of 68, while the Cantabria region had only 36.

Although it is a pity that the Cantabria region was merged, it is undeniable that the population of the Asturias region accounts for nearly 70% of the population of the new state after the merger. The state government and state parliament are naturally based on the original regional government and parliament of the Asturias region.

In addition, the people of Cantabria still have a strong sense of national belonging, so the regional merger work was much smoother than that of Navarre, and there was no need for Carlo to personally handle related work.

When Carlo left Navarra for Asturias, the government of Asturias had been merged and the related work was coming to an end.

Regarding the formation of the new state parliament, Asturias adopted the simplest approach, which was to directly merge the parliaments of the two original regions to jointly form the first parliament of Asturias.

This situation will continue until the next state assembly election and will not affect the work of the assembly during this period. It can be said to be a relatively appropriate solution.

Leaving Asturias, Carlo went to Santiago, the capital of Galicia.

Galicia was not involved in this administrative division reform. If we have to say something, it is just that the original Galicia region was changed to Galicia State.

Under normal circumstances, Carlo would not need to go to Galicia. After all, it was just a matter of changing the name, and the state governments could complete it quickly.

But considering the importance of Galicia, Carlo chose to visit Galicia in person and urge the local government to complete the change process from region to state more quickly.

As the fourth most populous administrative region in Spain and now the fifth most populous, the importance of Galicia is self-evident.

One of the reasons why Carlo chose to go to Galicia in person was also because of the special nature of Galicia compared to other states.

Galicia neither seeks autonomy and independence like the Basque Country and Catalonia, nor is it as stable as other Spanish states.

If I have to say, Galicia is somewhere in between. Galicians have a certain sense of belonging to Spain, but they also support Galicia gaining more autonomy. Compared with the more radical approaches of Catalonia and Basque, Galicians are obviously more moderate and are not opposed to staying in the big family of Spain.

The reason why there was no change in Galicia during this administrative division reform was that Carlo was worried about the reaction of the Galicians.

It is simply impossible to merge Galicia with other regions, as this will make Galicia even larger and the Galicians will also pursue higher qualifications and status.

It is also impossible to divide the land and population from Galicia, which will cause dissatisfaction among the Galicians and make them move closer to the rebellious attitude of Catalonia and the Basque Country.

The facts do prove that Galicia does not have as high a sense of national identity as other Spanish states.

When Carlo arrived in Galicia, the transformation of Galicia from a region to a state had not yet been completed.

You know, the state of Asturias, which involves land changes, has basically completed the change from region to state, not to mention Galicia, where there has been no change in territory and population. It stands to reason that the name change should be quick.

When Carlo arrived in Galicia, he immediately discovered something was wrong and immediately issued his own orders to the Galician government.

Carlo demanded that Galicia must complete the transition from region to state within a week and rename the regional government and regional council.

The powers of the state government and state parliament after the name change have some subtle differences compared to the previous regional government and parliament, and these differences are also what Galicia needs to pay special attention to.

Carlo does not want the state governments to overstep their authority. The state governments only need to listen to the cabinet government and complete their respective development tasks.

This is also the biggest difference between regional governments and state governments. Regional governments have greater autonomy, but state governments must abide by and uphold the constitution and act in accordance with the constitution promulgated by parliament.

Under Carlo's pressure, the Galician government had to speed up the political division reform, and successfully completed the corresponding name change work on the fourth day after Carlo arrived in Santiago.

After the corresponding reforms were completed in Galicia, Spain's administrative division reform has basically been completed.

Carlo did not stay in Galicia for too long. After all, after the political division reform, there were more important government affairs waiting for Carlo to deal with.

The view returns to Madrid.

As Spain's administrative division reform progresses, Parliament has held many discussions on the powers of the new state governments and state legislatures, and included them in the constitutional amendment.

The current Spanish Constitution was hastily drawn up after the revolution, and inevitably contains many unreasonable or omitted aspects.

During the 16 years since Carlo's coronation, the Spanish Parliament has made many amendments to the constitution, clarifying the powers of the king, the prime minister, and the upper and lower houses, allowing Spain's political situation to maintain long-term stability.

After the regions were transformed into states, the Spanish Parliament is also discussing the division of powers in the new administrative divisions, as well as the election process and related laws of state governments.

After Carlo returned to Madrid, he also attended the parliamentary meetings and roughly understood the ideas of some members of the parliament regarding the power changes of the new state government and state parliament.

Needless to say, the state government, including all members of the state government, including the governor, need to obey the orders of the cabinet government.

Regarding the state legislatures, there has been no change in the original way in which each state elects members of the state legislature and the state legislatures elect members of the House of Representatives.

However, due to the reduction in the number of administrative divisions in Spain, there have been certain changes in the number of seats in the House of Representatives that each state can elect.

Such changes are not critical, they simply increase the number of seats in the House of Commons that some states can elect.

The really critical change is the second one, which is the proposal to reform the state government election process.

Under Spain's original constitution, regional mayors were elected by regional councils, and it was difficult for the cabinet government and the lower house to interfere.

Although the cabinet government and the House of Commons also have supervisory powers over regional governments and mayors, it is difficult to remove regional mayors without violating regional laws.

After the regions were changed into states, this situation has been greatly alleviated.

The Spanish cabinet government has the power to directly dismiss governors, which is also the most direct and effective way for the cabinet government to strengthen its control over the states.

Compared with the cabinet government's power to directly remove the governor, the reform proposals put forward by members of parliament mainly focus on the election of the governor.

The original election was conducted by the regional council directly electing members from among their members, which inevitably allowed some politicians with a short political career to become high-ranking officials such as district mayors.

The proposal that the parliament is voting on is also based on this aspect. The proposal does not change the process of the state legislature electing the governor, but only modifies the conditions for all state legislators to run for governor, changing it to a recommendation election system.

What does this mean? Only those who are recommended are eligible to run for the governorship. Others, whether they are members of the state assembly or the lower house, are not eligible to run for the governorship.

How can one be recommended? Or which institutions have the power to recommend candidates?

Under the parliamentary proposal, only two institutions would have the power to recommend candidates: the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

In addition to the gubernatorial candidates recommended by the House of Representatives and the House of Commons, governors of each state who have completed their term will automatically be eligible for recommendation.

Of course, if the governor's performance during his term is poor, he may be disqualified from being recommended by the parliament, and a governor whose recommendation qualification is disqualified will not be able to continue to run for election.

The specific content of this proposal is that when each state elects a governor, the upper and lower houses will each recommend a gubernatorial candidate, plus the original governor, a total of three people, to participate in the gubernatorial election.

Each state legislature votes to elect a new governor from among the three gubernatorial candidates. The one with the most votes wins and automatically obtains the governorship for a five-year term.

The proposal also explains why the candidates for governor are recommended by the House of Representatives and the House of Commons.

The House of Commons has members from various states and is naturally very familiar with the conditions in each state, which is why the House of Commons is qualified to be recommended.

The House of Lords has a performance appraisal department, and it is very clear which officials have good performance and which officials have poor performance.

It is more reasonable for the two houses to jointly recommend candidates for governor of each state, because the recommendations are all subject to certain inspections and reviews. Naturally, there is no need to worry about those who are not very proficient in government affairs ascending to high positions such as governors due to various accidents.

(End of this chapter)