POLITICS-SPAIN: End of 25-Year Transition from ‘Franquismo’

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Commentary Tito Drago

MADRID, Mar 15 2000 (IPS) - The centre-right’s triumph in Sunday’s elections in Spain marked the end of a period of transition from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-75), and of the “Felipe Gonzalez era” in the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s Popular Party (PP) won an absolute majority in Congress, with 183 out of 350 seats, and trounced the alliance created by the PSOE and the United Left coalition (the IU, based on the Communist Party), which took 125 seats.

An analysis of the election outcome indicates in first place that Spanish society can no longer be seen as acting on the basis of the long-running division between those nostalgic for ‘Franquismo’ and those who suffered the consequences of the de facto regime.

The greatest proof of that was provided by the poor results obtained by the PSOE and IU campaign, which invoked ghosts of the past and warned of the dangers of another triumph by the right.

The governing party’s top leaders – Aznar, Javier Arenas, Pio Escudero and Mariano Rajoy – are all under 50, and got into politics after Franco’s death.

The PSOE’s allegation that the PP is “a pure and hard-line right-wing” party was not borne out by the first government of Aznar (1996-2000).

The two leading trade union confederations – the pro-socialist Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) and pro-communist Comisiones Obreras (CO) – signed a social pact with the Aznar administration and were on good terms with the Labour Ministry, while under Felipe Gonzalez (who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1996), the UGT and CO held two massive general strikes.

The PP buried the phantoms of the past, and voters gave the party their backing at the polls, enabling it to win an absolute majority in Congress, which ensured Aznar’s reelection as prime minister.

On the other hand, the left’s resounding defeat invited it to bury its own phantoms and start looking towards the future.

PSOE secretary-general Joaquin Almunia, Gonzalez’s chosen successor, resigned Sunday night as soon as the left’s crushing defeat became clear.

Since then, voices within the PSOE have been calling for in- depth change. Former government minister and deputy-elect Jose Borrell, who defeated Almunia in the party’s primary elections to designate a candidate for prime minister, said “the era of Felipe and his retinue has ended.”

Borrell’s triumph took Gonzalez’s followers by surprise. But a few months later, the continuous hurdles put in place by “Felipe and his retinue” forced Borrell to step out of the race.

Gonzalez was elected secretary-general of the PSOE in 1974, a year before Franco’s death. He governed the party with an iron fist, to the extent that the party leadership referred to him as “God” or “Number One” (in English), because he did not allow his views or orders to be questioned.

That “iron fist” and his intensely personal leadership style were reflected in his manner of governing as prime minister.

Legal summaries are still being put together on the so-called “dirty war” against the illegal Basque separatist organisation ETA, which involved more than 40 operations by security forces from 1983 to 1986, in which 28 people were killed.

The oral proceedings will soon get underway in a trial involving the misappropriation of reserved Interior Ministry funds while the PSOE was in government.

And the groundwork for criminal prosecution is being prepared in cases involving alleged payments of millions of dollars in illegal commissions in exchange for contracts for public works such as Spain’s high-speed train.

The president of the autonomous community of the western region of Extremadura, Juan Carlos Rodriguez Ibarra, one of the PSOE leaders with the highest levels of grassroots support, who is at loggerheads with the party’s “inner circle”, called for a total renovation of the party.

According to Rodriguez Ibarra, what has happened in the PSOE is that “there has been a group of leaders who have bought everything a group of theorists has to say, and we have carried out all sorts of experiments: quotas, primaries and a PSOE synonymous with certain last names, and this has taken us down the road to disaster.”

He was referring to quotas reserved in the party’s leadership organs, independently of the desires of the grassroots membership; primary elections whose results were not respected; and the frail alliance with the IU, which failed to stir up much enthusiasm among progressive voters.

The PSOE plans to designate a “management council” to head the party until its next congress, to be held in June or July.

The names of certain regional party leaders are being mentioned as possible members of the council: Rodriguez Ibarra; Mayor Francisco Vazquez of La Coruña in northwestern Spain; and the presidents of the provinces of Asturias in the northwest, Castilla- La Mancha in central Spain and Andalucia in the south, Vicente Alvarez, Jose Bono and Manuel Chavez, respectively.

The form and scope of the renovation of the PSOE will be determined by assemblies in each electoral district, previous to the election of delegates to a general congress, which will approve the party programme and designate a new federal executive commission.

The renovation of the party will culminate a quarter-century transition that began with Franco’s death on Nov 20, 1975.