Miguel Maura

Who was Miguel Maura?

Miguel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician of the Restoration and the Second Republic.

Maura was a son of the leading Conservative politician of the Restoration monarchy, Antonio Maura. In 1916 he was elected to the Cortes by the district of Alicante.

At first a supporter of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera he moved from a monarchist position towards a moderate republicanism. He jointly founded, with Niceto Alcalá Zamora, the Derecha Liberal Republicana, on 14 July 1930. The DLR looked to capture the centre ground of Spanish politics and mobilize mass support for a non-revolutionary republican regime. "Despite their sincere and undisputed Catholicism the party's two most prominent figures had abandoned monarchist constitutionalism for republicanism in 1930; their betrayal of the king's cause was completed in August when they joined other republican leaders in the Pact of San Sebastian. To the traditional Catholic right, this republican pact which was committed to negotiating with socialists, communists and anarcho-syndicalists was evidence that Maura and Alcala-Zamora had gone over to the other side."