Diet of Dalmatia - The Creation of The Diet

The Creation of The Diet

Recommended by the German-speaking Liberals, Francis Joseph issued a license by February 26, 1861 which created an Imperial Parliament (composed of the House and Senate) with extensive legislative powers, drastically reducing the powers previously planned for the provincial assembly. Within this patent, 15 were approved statutes of the reconstituted provincial assembly, with its Sabor regulations, which provided for an electoral system that gave voting rights only to those who were in possession of even a minimal fee.

The electoral system was based on four curiae, representing various social bodies:

• The high census (which ten representatives elected in Dalmatia)
• The cities (eight representatives)
• The chambers of commerce (three representatives)
• The rural municipalities (twenty representatives)

Apart from these, for the Kingdom of Dalmatia was envisaged that Members were entitled to the Archbishop of Zadar and Vladika (Metropolitan) Orthodox for Dalmatia, Istria and Albania pro tempore. The seat of the Diet was Zara.

This system gives the bourgeois and aristocratic classes and the urban population than rural, if the rest of the empire strengthened the political clout of the German group, in the eastern Adriatic (Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia) favor speaking populations and Italian culture, traditionally the richest and most concentrated in cities on the coast.