Europe, Headlines, Human Rights, Press Freedom

SPAIN: First Free Elections Still an Example, 30 Years On

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jun 14 2007 (IPS) - On the eve of the 30th anniversary of Spain’s first free elections after the end of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), they remain an outstanding example that transitions from de facto regimes to democracy can be peaceful and orderly.

When Franco died on Nov. 20, 1975, there were reasons to believe that the dictatorship could survive him. In first place, because he had appointed, without consulting voters, his hand-picked successor: Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón, whose education Franco had personally overseen.

Juan Carlos was crowned king, and thus became head of state, two days later on Nov. 22, before the ban on political parties or trade unions had been lifted, and in a context in which there were no independent media.

However, there are elements indicating that the seed of the transition to democracy had already been sown before the dictator’s death, Rodolfo Martín Villa, who played a key role in the process, told IPS.

Under “franquismo”, Martín Villa was the national head of the university students union, and in the first post-Franco government, which was appointed by the new king in December 1975, he served as minister of labour relations. He was later interior minister (1976-1979), minister of territorial administration (1980-1981), and first vice president (1981-1982). He is now a business executive, and has retired from politics.

Martín Villa said “Spain’s democratisation began in the last 10 years of the Franco regime, coinciding with the profound transformation of Spanish society – a transformation that made the transition possible.”

“There were three phases: the civil war (1936-1939) in which both sides committed atrocities; the cruel dictatorship of Franco, which trampled on democracy and the rule of law; and the last 10 or 15 years of that regime, when new laws began to gestate, forming the foundation for the transformations that would inevitably emerge,” he added.

Marcelino Camacho, a member of the communist party who helped found the Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras trade union federation, agreed with Martín Villa’s analysis in general terms.

Camacho, who spent nine years in prison under the dictatorship and was released shortly after Franco’s death, told IPS that “We believed in and were fighting for a peaceful transition, despite the repression we suffered.”

He said he respected and valued the positive aspects of King Juan Carlos’s rule, but added that “freedom means everything should be put up to election. We were in favour of a republic (not a monarchy), and I still am.”

The Communist Party of Spain (PCE) played an important role in the peaceful transition, especially in the negotiations between the opposition and the authorities.

A first step was taken when Juan Carlos, already designated as Franco’s successor, visited Romania, where then president Nicolae Ceasescu suggested that when the prince became head of state, he should take the PCE into account, although the Romanian leader did not elaborate on what he meant.

Juan Carlos’s response was “I’ll have them (the communist leaders) in Madrid, along with their phone numbers, to call them.”

A few months before Franco’s death, and again in early 1976, lawyer José Mario Armero, a member of the ultraconservative Catholic organisation Opus Dei who was close to Juan Carlos, met abroad with PCE leader Santiago Carrillo on the king’s instructions to ask him to back Spain’s transition to democracy.

In fact it was in Armero’s house on the outskirts of Madrid that Carrillo and then prime minister Adolfo Suárez met on Feb. 27, 1977 to negotiate the legalisation of the PCE, which was announced on Apr. 9.

While Carrillo negotiated with Suárez – despite the fact that four PCE labour lawyers were murdered by the far-right in early 1977 – the other emerging leftist force, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), was reluctant to take part.

The PSOE even voted against the new constitution that was negotiated by a commission, refusing to recognise the monarchy and standing firm in its demand for a republic. But under intense pressure, a few days later the party did an about-face and voted in favour of the constitution, which was approved by consensus in 1978.

Referring to that period, Carrillo said a few months ago that “Most of the political class of that time had a staunchly reformist attitude. Those politicians understood the need to reach a broad agreement in order to move from dictatorship to democracy. They knew how to negotiate, compromise, make mutual concessions and listen to each other, and were capable of giving birth to Spain’s current democratic era.”

Today the role played by the king in that process is widely recognised, as is that of Suárez, who was prime minister from 1976 to 1981.

The Jun. 15, 1977 elections, the first free post-dictatorship vote, were won by Suárez’s Union of the Democratic Centre, followed by the PSOE, the PCE and smaller parties.

The legalisation of the political parties and trade unions was accompanied by a newfound freedom of speech. What is today Spain’s leading newspaper, El País, was founded on May 4, 1976, providing an alternative to the conservative rightwing papers published under the dictatorship.

In November 1977, Inter Press Service (IPS) was the first international agency to distribute news items in Spain, breaking the monopoly enjoyed at the time by the state-run Spanish news agency EFE, which subscribed to the news services of other agencies and “selected” and “edited” their articles.

Later, EFE underwent its own democratic transition, and the rest of the world’s foreign news agencies were able to operate freely in Spain.