A Success Story

Full of Pressure from Below and Reform from Above 

The Francoist dictatorship left a legacy of centralised authoritarian juridical and political regime in which power rested, in the first instance with the State, and the head of State, the king, who used these legal but extraordinary powers to return them to the people that were demanding them. From the point of view of the monarchic institution, it could be said that the King exchanged power for legitimacy, acquiring an unquestionable influence and prestige. He nationalised an institution that in 1975 had provoked a whole range of reactions including suspicion and rejection, and gave the country a stability which was founded on a respected and neutral monarchist institution. 

 

The legal system that Franco left behind attributed to the Head of State the power to choose the Head of the Government from among three names proposed by the council of the realm. Some politicians, having the confidence of the new King (such as Fernandez Miranda), succeeded in having Adolfo Suarez put on the list, and he was designated. 

Suarez orchestrated the legal change by using the Francoist parliament itself, by means of a Law of Political Reform, which called for the direct election of the representatives by universal suffrage. The Cortes approved its own demise and that of the system hardly a year after the death of its author. The most recalcitrant Francoists had their hands tied, because the King, the Government, both national and international opinion and even some of their own comrades were in favour of the operation. The process was carried out by means of the completion of different stages in the Government's transition to democracy. In contact, and at times in conflict with, the democratic opposition, that was trying to guide this evolution towards its logical conclusion and to prevent it from becoming a mere system of limited democracy. 

On 15 December 1976, the reform was approved by referendum in which 77% of the total electorate participated. Practically the entire opposition was tolerated by the government in power and shortly afterward it was legalised, with the exception of the Communist Party. This last was legalised in April 1977, which resulted in the resignation of the Minister of the Navy and the formal protest of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. 

On 15 June 1977, the first general elections were held by universal suffrage in which approximately 80% of the electorate participated. The Central Democratic Union (UCD) obtained a simple majority and formed a government, directing its efforts to reach a basic agreement that would permit the drawing up of a new constitutional charter approved by referendum in December of the following year, and that would also create an economic policy, by consensus, that would alleviate the untenable economic situation characterised by among other things, inflation of over 25%. 

Democracy's Final Test and Its Definitive Consolidation 

The weakness of the new democratic government, the political infighting in UCD and the difficulties created by the economical crisis conformed the alibi used by a group of Old Regime nostalgics to attempt a coup d'Etat. 

On 23 February 1981, during the debate preceding Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo's investiture as successor to Adolfo Suarez who had just resigned on the insistence of his own party members a small grupo of Guardia Civil occupied the Congress of Deputies at the same time that Captain General of Valencia declared a state of emergency and ordered the militarisation of the region. The decisive action of the King aborted the attempted coup. 

After the failed coup, both public opinion and the political parties together expressed their rejection of violence and desire for consensus. The day after the attempt, massive, orderly demonstrations were held in the streets of all Spain's major cities. The paradox lay in the fact that the attempt of a few military officials to destroy democracy resulted in its reinforcement and the recognition of the Monarchy as an institution indissolubly tied to Spanish democracy. 

The victory of the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol at the polls in October 1982 practically completed the cycle of democratic consolidation in that new regime had successfully passed a the supreme test of peaceful transfer of power. Spain's accession to the European Community on 1 January, 1986 consummated Spain's reintegration in the Europe to which it has always belonged and completed a singular process of democratic normalisation. 

The "Agony" of the Regime and the Impossibility of Francoism Without Franco 

During the 1970's, many Francoists were convinced of the impossibility of perpetuating the system and creating a "Francoism without Franco". The scant ideological formulations from the post war period had been forgotten, the fear that has so terrorised society had gradually dissipated with the accumulation of freedom and repression had been reduced. The Church, the former pillar of the regime which had provided it with political figures, a veneer of legitimacy and an efficient propaganda apparatus over the years, had changed profoundly along Spanish society and as a consequence of the Second Vatican Council, the effects of which were devastating for the dictatorship. In 1971, the Spanish Catholic Church publicly apologised for its partisan attitude during the Civil War and thus shattered one of the few pillars on which the precarious Francoist ideology still rested. 

Without ideological support, the dictatorship began to lose the war of ideas to the opposition. Intellectuals, union leaders, students and journalist succeeded in convincing the country that Europe meant democracy. To the Spaniards, deprived of any alternative identity, being accepted by their neighbours came to be a question of self-esteem and this became a dilemma the Franco regime could never overcome. Its own adherents were also convinced of the need fore change. 

Adding to the fervour of the gap separating the regime and sectors of Spanish society that growing wider by day, the political opposition began to organise. On the left were: an active Communist Party (PCE), very influential in intellectual and working class circles and an extensive opposition union organisation, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) of Communist persuasion, which had also infiltrated Francoist trade unionism: other minor syndical forces of Socialist inspiration such as the historic Union General de Trabajadores (UGT), linked to the equally historic Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE), and the Union Sindical Obrea (USO), tied to other incipient forces. The clandestine unions had organised considerable economic strikes in 1956 and 1962, but had never instigated the general political strike preached by the Partido Communista de Espana since 1965 as the means to unseat the regime. 

Since 1964, anti-Franco groups had controlled in the student organisations and succeeded in irritating the regime without actually being able to seriously threaten it. Even separatist Basque terrorism in form of ETA had been unable to do so, until it assassinated Carrero Blanco, the President of the Government in 1973. ETA at first had been made up ultra nationalist Catholic youths, thus lacking a wide social base, which it only won thanks to the repression perpetrated by the dictatorship which declared states of exception in the region, a further frustration to the Basque population which had been stripped of its rights and culture since the end of the Civil War. 

Carrero Blanco's death was an event of political consequence since he had been the figure with the most authority after Franco and the only person capable of uniting the diverse Francoist families, as well as the only man able, as a military man himself, to command the respect of the Armed Forces. Carrero was, in effect considered to be most authoritative representative of the constitutional artifice constructed by the dictatorship. 

The Transition From Dictatorship to Democracy

Its constitutional artifice was founded on a law by which Juan Carlos, as King, would be named as the Head of State's successor. The prince was a direct descendent of legitimate Bourbon dynasty, the grandson of Alfonso XIII, he was the oldest son of the Count of Barcelona Don Juan, Don Juan was the head of the Royal Household, the son of Queen Victoria Eugenia of Battemberg and served in the British Navy, he was also a convinced democrat and Franco's rival in the 1940's and he maintained frequent disputes with the dictator throughout the course of the regime. In 1948, he sent Juan Carlos to be educated in Spain and surrounded him with monarchists. In such difficult circumstances, the Prince was able to remain aloof and avoid compromising situations. When Franco died 20 November 1975, Juan Carlos was unknown to the greater part of the Spanish population including much of the opposition and numerous Francoist politicians. 

The death by natural causes of General Franco occurred in atmosphere of political tense, happening as it did one year after a record number strikes were held in Spain. In the first eight months of 1975, Basque separatist terrorism in the form of ETA was especially active. The democratic opposition organised itself and deployed ever wider protest demonstrations demanding an institutional break with the dictatorship. 

The atmosphere in the street, in the media, in the lecture halls, favoured change and even the most avid Francoist sectors were not impervious to the general climate. In fact, it was a team of politicians of Francoist and conservative roots which smoothed the way for the transition to democratic institutions. This team had been chosen by the new Head of State himself, a decision which determined the course of the transition. 

The King lent the new regime a double legitimacy in that, to the various forces the regime, he represented the "legal" succession to Franco and that, in secular terms he was also the legitimate heir to the dynasty. It was true that the Monarchy was not a popular institution in Spain, but it also holds that it represented historical continuity for large conservative sectors of the population. It was, moreover, the only alternative for the Armed Forces whose Chief of Staff was in fact the King. The Crown was able, then, to seek out support from the remaining sectors of Spanish society, up to then set apart from and excluded from the political sphere. Furthermore, it needed the support and recognition of those sectors of the democratic opposition to acquire democratic legitimacy, which up to that point it lacked, and to transform itself into the "Monarchy of all Spaniards". 

In contrast to that which had occurred in other countries, where the establishment of democracy came at the hands of the Allied forces or by military action. In Spain political freedom was recovered through the combined movement of a group coming up "from below" and by the initiative from "above" thus giving it a legal character known in the strict sense as the "transition".