Written by the two leading specialists on Spanish electoral politics, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García, the book under review is a monumental study of this critical moment in modern Spanish history. In other words, could the chaotic nature of the latter part of the counting process have affected the overall outcome? Remarkably, despite the torrent of studies on Republican politics between 19 after Franco’s death in November 1975, Tusell’s study remained the only detailed national survey of the February 1936 election. Given the non-proportional majoritarian nature of the electoral system, this did not translate into a hung parliament but rather a comfortable Popular Front majority of over sixty seats. This irregularity would not have mattered if one of the two main electoral slates was on course for a landslide yet Tusell’s figures indicated the difference in terms of votes was less than 2 per cent. Thus local authorities newly appointed by the Popular Front government finally finished and verified the count. This was unprecedented Spanish constitutional practice then demanded that the outgoing government complete the elections before meeting the new Spanish parliament. Growing disorder led to the resignation of the caretaker centrist government of Manuel Portela Valladares on 19 February and its replacement by a Popular Front administration led by Manuel Azaña while the count was still going on in many provinces. Nevertheless, it prompted popular demands for an immediate change of government and the release of leftists imprisoned following the Socialist-led insurrection of October 1934. This was premature, the Spanish equivalent of Labour declaring victory in a British general election after the first declarations in its northern heartlands. Popular Front supporters celebrated victory hours after polls closed on 16 February following encouraging early results in some urban areas. Yet important questions remained unanswered. Tusell also stressed that the elections were clean, providing a comforting message in the death throes of the Franco regime that Spaniards were capable of organising a democratic system. In 1971, a team of historians led by Javier Tusell, making use of all the sources then available, rebutted Francoist claims of Popular Front larceny, concluding that the left did, after all, win a clear victory. In early 1939, a Nationalist special commission ruled that the rightist Counter-Revolutionary electoral slate had been robbed of victory, and therefore the Republican government was illegitimately constituted. For the nearly forty years of the Franco regime, apologists for the military rebellion of July 1936 denied that the leftist Popular Front had emerged victorious at the polls. It would prove to be the last Spanish democratic election until June 1977. The February 1936 parliamentary elections in Spain were the most important national vote in that country’s twentieth-century history. 1936: Fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular, by Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García 1936: Fraude y violencia en las elecciones del Frente Popular, by Manuel Álvarez Tardío and.
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