Dictatorship to Democracy... and Politics!
The young king Juan Carlos I took up the reigns of monarchy that his grandfather Alfonso XIII had left in 1931 when the republic was established. He pushed for change to become a democracy, and the first elections for 41 years were held in June 1977. After a great deal of compromise between right and left, Spain was reborn as a Constitutional Democracy.
The conservative coalition that won those first elections peacefully handed over power to the Socialist Workers Party in 1982 and the new democracy proved to be a stable form of government.
Although support for most extremist parties declined, the Basque separatist terrorists ETA persisted in pursuing a bloody campaign for independence, despite the endowment of great regional autonomy. Despite this Spain’s economy thrived under this stability, as did a society that became increasingly urban, and cosmopolitan. In 1982, Spain became a member of NATO, joined the European Union in 1995 and exchanged the Peseta for the Euro in 1999.
| The 1978 constitution |
| Although the new constitution was a masterpiece of consensus politics, its language was of compromise which left it open to various interpretations. In the last few years the boundaries of regional and cultural autonomy have been at the forefront of the news as the revival of previously suppressed languages and self identity becomes more prevalent in the regions. With these come a push for political and financial autonomy, blurring even further the constitution’s ambiguities. The role of the monarch as a largely titular Head of State, a non-secular church with reduced influence, and armed forces restrained behind the rule of law were all compromises between Left and Right. The areas of overwhelming agreement were civil liberties such as universal suffrage from the age of eighteen and abolition of the death penalty. |
After thirteen years under the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español ), the late 1990’s were dominated by the conservative Partido Popular led by José María Aznar. Their eight years in power ended in a wave of public opinion after the Madrid bombings in 2004. Already unpopular because of the ongoing Spanish military presence in Iraq, their knee jerk reaction was to blame ETA, even before any facts had been uncovered. As the evidence pointed unerringly at Al-Qaeda, the voting public saw their blunder as a deliberate attempt to mislead them. More recently, the sentence finally passed by the Spanish High Court found that the perpetrators of the shockingly bloody bombings were not guilty of membership of Al-Qaeda, leaving the question of who organised it a subject of continuing speculation.
The return of the socialist PSOE brought new agendas to the table. The new, more liberal, society was a backdrop in which Spain became the first country in the world to give full marriage and adoption rights to homosexual couples. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s government forced Spain to look back at Franco’s reign and begin to take stock of it. Uncovering old wounds offended many as they are still so raw, but by others it was seen as a necessary part of the healing process.
The nation was divided in opinion, and this was reflected in the results of the 2008 election. In a photo-finish election, the socialist party led by Rodríguez Zapatero managed a narrow victory with 43.64% of the votes, with the conservative PP snapping at their heels with 40.11%.
| The Franco Legacy |
| Aznar’s Partido Popular had preferred to let bygones be bygones and maintain an uneasy but peaceful relationship with the past: in 2002 they had voted against proposals to remove street names, statues and other symbols of the Franco era. In contrast, Zapatero’s PSOE government passed laws that were aimed to purge the evidence of a painful past. A Commission to repair the dignity and reinstate the memory of the victims of Francoism was established in 2004. Some symbols of the Franco regime, such as the Spanish fascist flag which bore an eagle, were banned by law; while new lyrics were chosen to accompany the national anthem. The pace of this psychological cleansing of the nation was accelerating. In March 2006 the European Parliament condemned Franco’s Human Rights violations, recommending that the period’s records be thrown open to public scrutiny. Soon afterwards a law on the Historical Memory of Spain was passed, which recognised the crimes committed against civilians and a systematic search ensued for mass graves of people executed during the dictatorship. In late 2007 Zapatero’s government banned public references to the Franco regime and removed any statues, street names and symbols associated with the dictator. The removal of certain references to Franco from schoolbooks was seen by many as a step too far, bringing back memories of the very censorship that was a hallmark of the regime they were trying to expunge. |
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