Yearbook 2008
Spain. Before the March parliamentary elections,
immigration and the economic downturn with increasing
unemployment were the focus. In the election, as expected,
the ruling Socialist Party PSOE won with 44 percent of the
vote. According to
Countryaah reports, the Conservative PP got 40 percent. Both increased
their mandate slightly; losers became regional small
parties. In April, Parliament approved a new socialist
minority government. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero remained
as prime minister and of the other 17 members of government
for the first time a majority of women.
In May, the Basque separatist movement arrested ETA
political leader Javier López Peña, along with three other
high-ranking ETA members in southern France. In November,
the man designated as ETA's military leader, Garikoitz
Aspiazu Rubina, was also arrested in southern France. Both
were believed to have been part of ETA canceling its
ceasefire in June 2007 and to have been behind several
fatalities with subsequent deaths. The arrests were a result
of cooperation between Spanish and French police and were
seen as important successes in the fight against the
terrorist group. In September, the Supreme Court banned two
Basque parties, PCTV and ANV, who were accused of links to
ETA.
In August, one of the SAS-owned airline Spanair crashed
its plane at takeoff from Madrid airport Barajas. Of the 172
people on board, only 18. survived a technical error,
according to an investigation.
1975 Transition towards democracy
In 1975, Franco died. He had crowned himself in 1947 and
the power now passed on to the heir to the Spanish crown,
Juan Carlos I de Borbón. It quickly became clear that it was
not possible to continue the Franco regime as Prime Minister
Arias Navarro tried otherwise. The king therefore appointed
one of his young confidants as new head of government. The
new Prime Minister, Adolfo Suarez, had his career linked to
the fascist state apparatus, but at the same time gained
confidence among the modern part of the bourgeoisie. Because
of his friendship with the king, he secured himself against
the conservative army leadership, and he met far and wide
during the winter and spring of 1977 the opposition's demand
for the release of the political prisoners (especially the
Basques) and the legalization of the political parties.
The parliament elected in 1977, after pressure from the
left, became a constitutional assembly in practice. The new
constitution, which replaced the Franco-era laws, defined
Spain as a kingdom with parliamentary democracy, legal
certainty, freedom of speech and organization, the right to
strike, separation of church and state, and expanded
self-government for the regions. The Constitution was passed
by a referendum in 1978. Thus, the road was opened for a
large number of politicians, intellectuals and artists to
return home - in some cases after 40 years of exile.
The victor of the 1977 elections and again in 1979 was
Prime Minister Suarez's Center Democratic Union (UCD). This
alliance of various liberal, conservative, Christian
democratic and right-wing social democratic groups became
the dominant party on the right. The conservative New
Franciscans (Alianza Popular - Coalicion Democratica) were
almost swallowed up by the UCD, while the aggressive Union
Nacional gathered the small but active minority of
fascist-inspired Franconostalgic groups.
The largest on the left was the Socialist Labor Party,
the PSOE, which was the dominant party during the republic
in the 1930s. From the end of the civil war, its influence
had declined, and the leadership in exile gradually lost all
contact with what was happening within Spain's borders. From
1960, a new generation grew, taking over the leadership of
the party in 1974, when the young Seville lawyer Felipe
Gonzalez was elected secretary general. A number of smaller
socialist parties and movements later joined the PSOE, among
others. Socialist People's Party (PSP), led by Enrique
Tierno Galvan, who became the PSOE's Honorary President.
The PSOE doubled its membership numbers in a short time.
It was very ideologically composed, ranging from radical
Marxists to moderate social democrats, and the conflicts
concerned relations with Marxism, the view of regional
self-government and the influence of the social democratic
international of which the PSOE was a member. It had not had
a particularly cordial relationship with the Communists, but
after the municipal elections in 1979, the two parties
entered into an agreement on mutual support in the election
of mayors.
The Communist Party, the PCE, was formed by a scaling off
of the PSOE in 1921, but was a small sectarian party until a
new policy was launched in the 1930s. During the Civil War,
the PCE was in favor of order, moderation, and cooperation
with the middle class to win the war. They felt that the
struggle for socialism could only begin after Franco was
defeated. This led to several settlements with the
revolutionary Trotskyists and anarchists, who were harshly
treated or directly annihilated by the Communists, who
strengthened their power through Soviet assistance.
After the defeat of the republic, the communists were the
group most persecuted by Franco. When the World War and the
guerrilla epoch were over in the late 1940s, a group of
younger leaders advocated a reconciliation policy that would
bring together all democratic forces to fight the Franco
dictatorship. A line that gradually gained support and
continued after Franco's death and into the constitutional
period after the election. In the mid-1970s, the PCE removed
itself from Moscow's hegemony and became one of the main
representatives of " Euro Communism ". In 1978, the PCE
abandoned " Leninism " and defined itself as a "Marxist,
democratic and revolutionary party".
On the far left were a large number of small Maoist,
Trotskyist and anarchist parties, the most important being
the Marxist-Leninist Workers Revolutionary Organization
(ORT) and the Labor Party (PT). The GRAPO movement called
itself antifascist but was often accused of being
infiltrated by provocateurs. It assumed responsibility for
several assaults on police and military personnel. Several
fascist terror groups also carried out attacks.
In February 81, a group of officers from the Guardia
Civil Parliament captured Cortes and tried to bring down the
government. But the coup failed and the democratic process
consolidated, as all political parties and especially King
Juan Carlos withdrew from it. It turned out that the king
had the support of the military.
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