A Bit of Democracy

"We will have democracy for all," declared Spanish Premier Carlos Arias Navarro in a nationally televised speech to Spain's Parliament. Arias was outlining a program for political change that had been anxiously awaited since the death of Dictator Francisco Franco last November. Although some of the promises in the speech sounded grand, it was clear that the "democracy" Arias spoke of would not be for all and would come very slowly.

The most important of Arias' proposed "limited modifications" in Spain's 18-year-old constitution was the creation of a second chamber of the Cortes, Spain's Parliament. This would be a popularly elected lower house that would have equal power with a largely appointed upper chamber. Arias also promised to reform the electoral law that now allows only Franco's National Movement to exist as a political party. Arias carefully avoided using the word party, but most observers interpreted his speech to mean that moderate parties and possibly even a socialist coalition would eventually be permitted. There would, however, be no toleration of Basque separatists or Communists.

Arias also promised some vaguely defined softening of a draconian anti-terrorism law passed last August, under which hundreds have been detained without trial. In addition, his speech included reference to reforming the tax system. Otherwise, the package contained few specifics and appeared to be concerned with upholding the old order. Many Spaniards suspected, for example, that the promised new chamber of the Cortes would do little to reduce the power of the National Council, which is dominated by the Francoist right wing. "I thought the speech would be conservative," declared Socialist Enrique Tierno Galvan, "but I didn't think it would be reactionary." Added a high Communist leader: "Nothing has changed. It is the same as before."

Critics of the regime can point to recent incidents that have discredited the "liberal" image fostered by the government since the death of Franco. Last month, for example, two leading leftist organizations, the Junta Democratica and the Plata Forma, announced plans for a mass demonstration in downtown Madrid to protest the slow pace of political reforms. The regime's response was to display thousands of security forces who took up places in the Plaza de Colon, where the rally was to be held, and sealed it off from demonstrators.

Drafting Workers. The political ferment in Spain has been intensified by growing labor unrest. Some 250,000 workers in the banking, construction and metalworking industries have walked off their jobs to protest low wages. When postal and rail workers threatened to do the same, the government responded by drafting the workers into the army, thereby making any refusal to work punishable by court-martial. The danger in the government's hard-line policies is that the dissatisfied workers, deprived of any peaceful means to make changes, will eventually resort to violence. Arias' reform program contained not a single word about free labor unions or any alteration in the government-controlled syndicates that have long made up an important part of Franco's "corporate" state.

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