Empire Rising: Spain

After spending an unusual Christmas, the time came to January 1, 1876.

Carlo’s eldest son, Juan Fernando, was nearly seven months old during Christmas, able to crawl around Carlo’s big bed.

Carlo was quite fond of the little guy, spending the whole Christmas day playing with little Juan Fernando, fully fulfilling his duties as a father.

It is worth mentioning that the little fellow also very much loved his father, Carlo. When Carlo came to the bedside, the little one immediately crawled beside his father, which made Queen Sophie, who had been caring for the little one for a long time, a little jealous.

With the addition of a little one, the Christmas atmosphere in the Royal Palace became much more lively. Although the previous year’s Christmas celebrations at the Royal Palace were equally grand, the Royal Family had only Carlo and Queen Sophie, making it look rather lonely and cold.

In the future, every Christmas of the Royal Family, the number of Spanish Royal Family members will surely continue to increase. Currently, Queen Sophie’s health has been well maintained, and Carlo also intends to have a second child with Queen Sophie this new year.

Anyway, the Spanish Royal Family does not have any financial concerns, so the more princes and princesses are born, the better. Only when the number of Royal Family members grows can the family expand its branches and leaves, thus avoiding the risk of extinction.

The good news is, both Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young, and the next decade offers plenty of time for them to continue having children.

If luck is on their side, the number of Carlo’s children might just assemble a football team. More births within the Royal Family also serve as an example, encouraging the people to have more children, promoting the growth of Spain’s population.

As time moved into January 1876, the parliamentary elections for Lower House deputies in various regions of Spain gradually reached their conclusion.

The elections in Madrid Region and some less populous regions ended first. Naturally, less populous regions did not receive many Lower House seats, so the elections for individual seats went very quickly.

Carlo also promptly received the election reports for these regions where the elections had concluded. The regions where elections were completed totaled four, including Madrid Region, Balearic Islands Region, La Rioja Region, and Cantabria Region.

Among the not even 30 Lower House seats held by these four regions, the Progressive Party still maintained the majority, but the numbers could no longer form an overwhelming advantage over the Conservative Party.

The proportion of Progressive Party deputies is only about 40%, while the proportion of Conservative Party deputies has risen to 30%, with the Liberal Party having a mere 2 members, accounting for even less than 10% among all deputies in these four regions.

Although these are merely the election results of deputies from four regions, to some extent, they can reflect the current level of support for various parties throughout Spain.

Due to the lingering influence of Prime Minister Prim, the Progressive Party remains the largest party in Spain for now. However, the Liberal Party, without the protection of Prime Minister Prim, is no longer one of the top three parties in Spain, alongside the Conservative Party, and there is already a certain gap between it and the Progressive Party as well as the Conservative Party.

Although Carlo still sees good prospects in Mateo leading the Liberal Party to gradually grow, considering the current political landscape of Spain, the path to leading the Liberal Party to become a strong party, comparable to the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party, is destined to be fraught with difficulties.

After more than half a month, finally by the end of January, all 298 Lower House deputy seats in various regions of Spain were elected, and the new Lower House officially convened its meeting on February 3, 1876.

The distribution of the 298 Lower House deputy seats wasn’t far off from Carlo’s initial estimates. The Progressive Party remains Spain’s largest party, occupying 37.6% of the Lower House proportion, with a total of 112 seats.

The Conservative Party has leaped to become Spain’s second-largest party, significantly closing the gap with the Progressive Party. The Conservative Party’s proportion is also as high as 33.2%, almost becoming Spain’s second party to have more than 100 Lower House seats.

The Liberal Party fell short, occupying a mere 34 seats, accounting for 11.4% of the total Lower House seats.

Besides, around 17.8% of the deputies are non-partisan individuals in the Lower House, occupying 53 seats, even more than the seat count of the third-largest party, the Liberal Party.

After the reformation of the Lower House, Carlo personally attended the first meeting of the Lower House. Admittedly, a large meeting of nearly 300 people is indeed more lively than a 200-person meeting, and the venue was temporarily expanded to ensure it could accommodate nearly 300 Lower House deputies.

After the formation of the Lower House, the next crucial task was to elect a Speaker of the Lower House.

The position of Speaker is quite important. Externally, it symbolizes the chamber and internally holds the power to preside over chamber meetings, arbitrate chamber proposals, and announce election voting results.

Because the Speaker is also a deputy, the Speaker possesses all the powers of a deputy.

The routine weekly meetings and emergency meetings of the Lower House require the Speaker of the Lower House to preside over them. Thus, the first order of business after the establishment of the Lower House is for all members to vote to elect the new Speaker of the Lower House.

Looking at the distribution proportions of Lower House seats, it is apparent that the candidate for Speaker of the Lower House will likely emerge from the Progressive Party or the Conservative Party.

However, because neither of these parties holds more than 50% of the Lower House seats, they also need to garner support from other party deputies or those non-partisan deputies to more effectively ensure their candidate becomes the Speaker of the Lower House.