Abdul Hamid did promulgate the Constitution in 1876, and established a parliament. However Russia invaded the Ottoman Empire anyway the next year, criticism of the parliament of the monarch over incompetency in the war meant Abdul Hamid suspended the constitution and parliament in 1878, thus ending the First Constitutional Era. For three decades Abdul Hamid ruled as the Empire without checks on his power as an autocrat. The 1908 Young Turk Revolution forced Abdul Hamid to reinstate the Constitution and recall parliament, starting the Second Constitutional Era, which lasted until the Empire's end in 1922. The Constitution was briefly suspended during next year in the 31 March Incident, when reactionaries rose up in Constantinople and forced the parliament to accept its demands. However the uprising was crushed by the Action Army, which restored the constitution and the status quo. In addition to Abdul Hamid's deposition, the Constitution was also modified to strengthen the powers of the lower house: the Chamber of Deputies. The Constitution was de facto suspended following the take over of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) dictatorship in 1913. Parliament and elections The Ottoman Empire was a bicameral system, with a lower house, the popularly elected Chamber of Deputies, and an upper house, the Senate, whose members were appointed by the Sultan.. Collectively, both chambers were known as the General Assembly. After the 31 March Incident in 1909, the constitution was amended to delegate the popularly elected lower house: the Chamber of Deputies, more powers over the Senate and the Monarchy. All registered males above the age of 25 were allowed to vote in a two-stage elections, where they first voted for a representative who would go on to vote for a deputy. The Ottoman Empire's first election was held in 1876, and its second in 1877, both of which lacked political parties. With the end of the First Constitutional Era came 34 years of direct rule by Yıldız Palace. The elections held following the 1908 revolution were the first elections in Ottoman and Turkish history to feature political parties. The two major parties during the Second Constitutional Era was the Union and Progress Party (the CUP's parliamentary group) and the Freedom and Accord Party (as well as its predecessor: the Liberty (Ahrar) Party). Though both were ideologically Young Turks parties, the Unionists desired a centralized Turkish dominated Ottoman state, while the Itilafists desired decentralization and