VOTERS SAY 'SI' TO DEMOCRACY

"We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box. Spain has no foolish dreams."

--Generalissimo Francisco Franco, 1938

But Spain does have dreams, and they are not foolish. After four decades of repressive dictatorship, more than 20 million Spaniards went to the polls last week--massively, eagerly and peacefully--to reject the legacy of Francisco Franco's authoritarian rule and vote yes to democracy.

It was Spain's first free election in 41 years, and the results were a cautious endorsement of the astute young politician who was appointed by King Juan Carlos eleven months ago to guide the transition to democracy. Rejecting parties on both the far left and far right, the voters swept Premier Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez. 44, and his Democratic Center Union (U.C.D.), a center-right coalition of 15 parties, to within seven seats of an absolute majority in the lower house of the new Cortes.

Taking 34% of the popular vote, the U.C.D. emerged with 165 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies and 105 of the 207 elective seats in the Senate. The U.C.D.'s control of the upper house was reinforced when the King, exercising one of his prerogatives, appointed 41 senators on election day. The senators, many of whom are expected to support a new Suarez government, range from moderate to conservative.

The U.C.D.'s victory was won largely in Spain's agricultural and politically conservative provinces. Suarez's coalition got strong competition from the Socialist Workers Party, which won 28.5% of the popular vote, 119 seats in the lower chamber and 60 in the upper. The Socialists outpolled the U.C.D. in Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and in the Basque country, and held the U.C.D. to a draw in Madrid. "Our party has achieved a ringing success," said Socialist Leader Felipe Gonzalez. "It has shown that it is a political force capable of responding to the political needs of the people." Gonzalez, 35, a labor lawyer whose easy charm and insistent appeal sparked the Socialists' revival, firmly established himself and his party as a future alternative. The vote meant that the Socialists were again the country's largest single party--as they were before the civil war in 1936.

The other principal parties trailed far behind. The Communists did well in industrial Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia, but managed little more than 9% of the total vote and 20 seats in the lower house. Party Chief Santiago Carrillo, 62, easily won in Madrid, and the legendary Communist heroine Dolores ("La Pasionaria") Ibarruri, 81, regained the seat in the Asturias region that she had held before the civil war.

The voters also decisively rejected those who sought a return to the Fran co era. Former Interior Minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne's right-wing Popular Alliance picked up only 8.2% of the vote and 17 seats. Several prominent rightists, among them former Premier Carlos Arias Navarro and Bias Pinar, head of the neofascist New Force, lost their bids for seats in the new Cortes.

At week's end, Suarez began forming a new government. He revealed that he had submitted his resignation to the King on election day. "Given the results of the elections," he added, "he has confirmed me in my post." Gonzalez, meanwhile, ruled out the possibility that his party would join a coalition with the U.C.D. But the Socialists' strong showing in the popular vote prompted him to call for early municipal elections. Gonzalez also reflected some dissatisfaction with the electoral law, which disproportionately favors rural, conservative areas over urban centers. The U.C.D. thus was enabled to win nearly half the seats in the lower house while getting a third of the vote. The new parliament, said Gonzalez, should be dissolved after writing a constitution, and new elections held (its official term is four years).

No one under 64 in Spain had ever voted before in an election. Yet the people, somewhat to their own surprise, went to the polls as if they had been doing it all their lives. "It is so normal," said one young woman activist of the Socialist Workers Party, "that it makes you think we have been living in a democracy for the last 40 years."

In Madrid and other major cities, long queues of expectant voters, their identification papers in hand, were waiting well before the 9 a.m. opening of the polls on a clear, brisk day. Many had already filled out their ballots at home, and came prepared to drop their two envelopes (one for the Congress of Deputies, one for the Senate) into transparent plastic urns. As a precautionary measure, police were on duty at all 38,000 polling stations across the country. Army troops guarded power installations, communications points and some buildings. But even a dozen or so small bombs set off by terrorists (without much damage) failed to dampen the mood of the day. Said Communist Party Leader Carrillo, who only six months ago was arrested after he returned home from exile in Paris: "The happiest single moment for me was being able to cast my vote."

Just as in countries where democracy is deeply rooted, there were refreshingly bizarre incidents to e'nliven the day. In Madrid, one overanxious poll watcher smashed an urn in what a newspaper described as a "fit of nerves." An angry voter in the capital tried to stuff a copy of Franco's last testament into the ballot box. Two nuns were arrested in Malaga for distributing, of all things, Communist propaganda near the polls. In Castellon de la Plana, on the Mediterranean coast, voters allowed a young man and woman to step to the front of the line so they could get to their wedding ceremony on time. In Valladolid, two elderly women--accustomed to voting either si or no in the tame referendums of Franco's day--turned away from the polls in bewilderment when they were told that this time they had to make a choice from among political candidates.

Even intellectuals confessed that they found the exercise of their franchise exhilarating. "I've seen so many elections in other countries that you would think it would not be new for me," said Magazine Editor Jose Luis Gutierrez. "But it was still hard to believe that I was actually voting myself." Added a television executive: "When the monitor said vota, I don't know, I felt an almost sexual emotion. Forty years, forty years..."

In the working-class suburb of Vallecas, so leftist that even in Franco days it was known as "Little Russia," a factory worker talked proudly of his Socialist vote--though he allowed that Suarez was simpatico. "I am 34 and these elections are good for me, but mainly they are good for my children," he said. "We don't want to think about the civil war. That was a crime. Brother against brother. No one wants it again. No one."

But the war's memories were sometimes hard to still. In Paracuellos de Jarama, a small pueblo on the outskirts of Madrid that gained infamy during the civil war when Republican forces shot hundreds of Nationalist prisoners there, the local voting monitor politely ushered a trooper of the still feared Civil Guard out of the schoolroom polling station. "He has a gun, and he does not belong here," said one of the party observers behind the urn.

Such incidents, in their own ways, were small triumphs over old, ingrained fears. Even after the referendum last December, in which an overwhelming 90% of those voting endorsed the reform program that led to the election, many Spaniards doubted that it would take place. Recalled Writer Ernesto Carratala, 23: "Three or four months ago, many people thought June 15 would never happen, something would prevent it. They first had to see the election campaign to understand that the left was serious. And only that generated an opening up in the public."

As the campaign continued, skepticism declined. "Suddenly you got the feeling, particularly toward the end, of political life," said a journalist in Madrid. "The result was that even if some were bewildered, many more were interested. So much was crammed down so quickly. Everyone remembered how it was [before Franco died], and there you had the Communist flag in living color on television, and there was politics in the streets. It was like one of those old comic movies running at too fast a speed."

Four decades just could not be swept away overnight. When the first Communist campaign caravan rolled through Ciudad Real, old women crossed themselves. "As far as they were concerned, we were people with horns on our heads and bombs under each arm," said a party worker. "That's all they had ever known." While leftist parties did open some offices in villages, they made few converts. In one pueblo, a leftist coalition called a rally and found exactly two people in attendance. "Comrades," began one of the speakers, whereupon the two men stepped forward and identified themselves as Civil Guards. "You don't have to do it for us," said one of the cops.

Explained a Communist Party member: "In the countryside, many of the people are nervous. Everyone knows everyone. They are not sure whether the authorities will find out how they voted and what repercussions it might have. It's not the civil war that bothers these people, but the repression that followed it. They are not sure it won't come back." Even in the cities, there were those who remained reluctant to talk about how they would vote. The old reflexes had not quite disappeared.

Apart from a few street fights and scattered bombing incidents, the campaign was peaceful and enthusiastic, carried out by the candidates with gentlemanly regard for the rules of the new game. Socialist Gonzalez, who favors open-necked shirts and casual jackets, brought American-style campaigning to Spain, jetting about the country to rallies in a chartered plane. Seeking to establish his party as the major alternative, he concentrated his fire on Fraga's Popular Alliance and Suarez's coalition. He charged that 80% of the U.C.D. candidates were interchangeable with those of Fraga's party--like "Pepsi and Coca Cola."

The Communists, led by the savvy Carrillo, had a simple aim: to make the party respectable in a country where it had been outlawed for 38 years. With caveats, they accepted the monarchy and its flag--to the point where wags dubbed them el Real Partido Comunista (the Royal Communist Party). The party's freewheeling rallies, including a giant, rain-soaked election-eve bash outside Madrid for more than 200,000 supporters, dazzled much of Spain. By contrast, Fraga's stodgy Alliance held many of its meetings by invitation only.

As Juan Carlos' appointee with a mandate until 1981, Suarez did not have to run at all. He was afraid, however, that the fractured centrist parties would be trounced as voters turned to more dynamic candidates on both left and right, thus recreating the "two Spains" of old. So he stepped in himself. His lieutenants converted the faltering centrist alliance into a coalition composed of Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, liberals and a number of former Franco officials. Although he promised to resign if the U.C.D. lost, the Premier was sensitive to opposition clamor about the unfair advantage his office might give him. Thus he made only one campaign appearance. But he managed, nonetheless, to get across the message that he would bring change without risk and without trauma.

The vote registered by the U.C.D. was largely a tribute to Suarez's popularity. Backed by the King, he had steered Spain, with hardly a false move, from dictatorship to what should eventually become a full-fledged parliamentary democracy. Moreover, he had managed to do it in less than a year.

Spain's first government after Franco's death in November 1975 was headed by Carlos Arias Navarro, then 66, an old Franquista war horse who was despised by the left as the "Butcher of Malaga" for his role as Franco's military prosecutor during the civil war. While Arias consistently talked about "reform without haste but without pause," it soon became apparent that the pace was to be glacial. With a dangerous political impasse building and fears of labor unrest in the air, the King sacked Arias last July and appointed Suarez Premier. The selection was a surprise: Suarez was virtually unknown to the public, even though he had been a versatile bureaucrat in the Franco regime for most of his professional life.

Born in the small Castilian town of Cebreros, 60 miles west of Madrid, Suarez earned law degrees at the universities of Salamanca and Madrid. In 1950 he entered the political arena as an aide to the provincial governor of Avila. He next went to work for the National Movement, Franco's single-state party, and in quick succession became one of the few elected members of the Cortes, civil governor of Segovia province, director-general of the state-run radio and television network and chairman of Entursa, Spain's national tourism corporation. Although in 1975 Suarez had founded his own political association, the Democratic Union of the Spanish People, he entered the Arias government as head of the National Movement, a post of ministerial rank.

His mandate in that job, as it turned out, was to dismantle the party.

As soon as he was appointed Premier, Saarez and the King agreed on their goal: reforma sin ruptura, or reform without a break. Their aim was to preserve some sort of legitimacy while using the instruments of the dictatorship to force drastic political reorientation.

Not a month passed without its own crisis. Asked recently which had been the most dramatic month since his appointment last summer, Suarez grinned, "July, August, September, October . . ." He has often compared his job to that of a tightrope walker, adding ruefully that "someone is always oiling the rope." The dangers were real enough. There were extremist threats from both left and right, the pull and tug of regional-autonomy demands, a grave economic crisis and the risk that the "Bunker," the old political and economic establishment, might move against the King and the government.

One of Suarez's first acts was to recommend to the King a partial amnesty that affected some 800 political prisoners (170 more have since been freed or exiled to Western European countries). He engineered the national referendum that paved the way for last week's elections after adroitly maneuvering the old rubber-stamp Cortes into voting itself out of existence by approving a reform bill that provided for a new bicameral parliament. After abolishing the National Movement, Suarez moved to legalize the Communist Party, convinced that the Communists were more of a threat outside the system than in it--and aware that there would be protests in Western Europe if they were barred from political participation. In a deft stroke of timing, he chose Easter weekend, when most of Spain was on holiday, to act. So stunning was the news that the Radio Nacional announcer sputtered through the first bulletin in disbelief.

There were rumors of a military coup, but after a tense meeting, the conservative Army Superior Council agreed to accept the government's decision "for patriotism's sake." Exiles were given passports to return home. Carrillo led the way, followed by others, including La Pasionaria from Moscow and Communist Poet Rafael Alberti from Rome. This spring Suarez's government legalized trade unions and restored the right of workers to strike. Finally, it reestablished diplomatic relations, severed since 1939, with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Suave, shrewd and cool under pressure, the movie-star handsome Premier lives with his attractive brunette wife Amparo and their five children in Moncloa Palace, the elegant official residence outside Madrid. A crack tennis player in his now rare leisure time, he regularly puts in 16-hour days, conferring frequently with Juan Carlos in a working relationship that insiders describe as one of "closest harmony."

Yet no one seems to know him very well. His staff is small, and he rarely sees the press. Explains one of his assistants: "He has been a public man, but one in a cage." He has had reason to be cautious, and he knows that his country faces difficulties ahead. But he also believes that Spain's political evolution is irreversible.

In today's Spain, political change is only half the story. As if to make up for their long night of denial, Spaniards are luxuriating in the arts, in a taste for consumer goods, in a relaxation of old mores. The new freedom has already spurred a renaissance in journalism and film. Burger Kings and jeans are in. Only two years ago, a policeman ordered a picture of Goya's Naked Maja removed from a bookstore window because it was "filth." Today the operative word is des-tape (uncovering)--as the stacks of gamy magazines on newsstands amply demonstrate.

Since Franco's death, Madrid has sprouted two combative new dailies, El Pais and Diario 16, and a host of snappy magazines like Interviu and Opinion. Theatergoers have been able to see hitherto forbidden plays by Federico Garcia Lorca and Bertolt Brecht. Moviegoers have flocked to such films as Songs for After a War, a documentary on the Franco era, Carlos Saura's Cousin Angelica, a thoughtful flashback to civil war divisions, and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

Censorship still exists--though it is not as stiff as before--but enforcement can be confused and capricious. The authorities have not tried to close Madrid, Mortal Sin, a lively revue--complete with a nude scene --that pokes fun at everything, including politicians of all stripes. The most popular film in Madrid last winter was The Proposal, a sexually explicit tale of an amoral senorita who accidentally kills her lover out of erotic ardor. But Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris has yet to be shown, and a poet was recently fined $2,700 for reading in public a work by Garcia Lorca available in most bookstores.

Attitudes on sex and marriage are changing. New women's groups are agitating for the legalization of divorce (favored by six out of ten Spaniards) and for abolition of harsh old laws that punish adultery with fines and imprisonment--for women only.

The Catholic Church remains opposed to contraception and abortion, but a special commission will study the divorce issue. Although some bishops retain strong links with the Bunker and the church remembers its deep involvement with the Franco regime, priests and even nuns openly flaunt leftist sympathies. No action was taken against some 20 priests who ran as candidates in the election (three won), despite Vicente Cardinal Enrique y Tarancon's admonition that the church should stay above the political struggle. In any case, the church has a spiritual struggle on its hands--against "indifferentism." According to one recent poll, only 48% of adult Spaniards consider themselves practicing Catholics.

Many of the changes began well before Franco's death. The liberalization within the church, for example, started slowly after the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Other changes were triggered by the economic boom of the 1960s, which made Spain the world's ninth largest industrial power and spurred a major rural-population shift. Immigrants from the poor south and Galicia moved to Madrid, the industrial Basque provinces and Catalonia. In 1960 four out of 100 families owned a car; today 51 out of 100 do.

But growth had its negative impact, and in the unstable atmosphere of post-Franco politics, the Spanish economy has been left largely to its own long-deteriorating devices. "We have been living a drunken fiesta of reform and democracy, and the economy has been forgotten," complains one leading businessman. "When the election is finally over we are going to wake up with a monumental hangover."

The morning-after view is sobering.

Inflation is raging at an annual rate of about 30%. Nearly 8% of the nation's work force is unemployed. A deep and chronic balance of payments deficit --caused largely by oil-price hikes and sluggish exports--threatens the long-term solvency of a nation vitally dependent on foreign trade. To make up for a record $4.3 billion budget deficit last year, the government had to draw on reserves (now down to $4.5 billion from a peak of $6.7 billion in 1973) and borrow heavily abroad.

Any belt-tightening program is bound to weaken Suarez's popularity, but he has little choice if Spain is to retain its good international credit rating --and avoid eventual bankruptcy. In the view of most economists, the peseta will have to be devalued by 15% to 20%. But devaluation must be accompanied by anti-inflation measures if Spain's exports are to remain competitive abroad. That in turn means gaining agreement on wage restraints from the newly powerful left, which has served notice that it will demand tax and social security reform, the creation of new jobs, and a greater burden on Spain's privileged upper crust.

Suarez is aware of the problem and is known to favor a three-year stabilization plan. A spokesman for the U.C.D. declared last week that the fight to solve the crisis must have "the support of all Spanish political forces." That could be difficult to obtain. While the U.C.D. and the Socialists are not far apart in their support for Spain's mixed economy (with a sizable public sector), they could well differ on who should bear the burden of economic stabilization.

Suarez is also expected to press for speedy admission of Spain into the European Community. The election was a crucial hurdle in that respect. The nine present members have always insisted that a country had to have a democratic form of government before it could even apply. But the problems of Spanish entry may be complex. The main difficulty lies with the powerful farm lobbies of France and Italy, which will resist any concessions that might make Spanish products more competitive in the Common Market. Although some observers believe that Spain could become a member in two years, others argue that it might take until the early 1980s.

Another major task facing the Premier and the new Cortes is the writing of a new constitution. Exactly what shape it will take is yet to be thrashed out. "Every politician in Spain has a constitution under his arm," quipped Suarez the other day. The most sensitive issue involves defining the monarchy and its powers. Installed as King by Franco, Juan Carlos, 39, gained true dynastic credibility only after his father, Don Juan de Borbon, the Count of Barcelona and the late Alfonso XIII's rightful heir, formally ceded his throne rights last month. Juan Carlos' powers are far stronger than those of any other monarch in the Western world, since he can rule by decree. He has been a stabilizing and liberal influence. In praising the manner in which Spain conducted its elections, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance last week remarked that the King deserved the "greatest tribute" for his "skill and care" in restoring democracy.

But his prerogatives will inevitably be reviewed. The left will push for a constitutional monarchy, perhaps eventually even a referendum on the monarchy. The left also wants the Premier to be responsible to the Cortes rather than to the King, as is the case now. Predicts a diplomat: "Juan Carlos wants to preserve the monarchy. Since he is intelligent and a student of family history, he will be reasonable and not expect to hold on to everything."

The volatile issues of regionalism must also be resolved. "This is another world up here," says a lawyer in San Sebastian, the government's old summer capital in the heart of the Basque country. "The fascist occupation has not ended. The police and the Civil Guard are divorced from the people. It is a situation of hate." Franco never forgave the Basques and the Catalans for fighting against him during the civil war. As a result, political repression was heavy.

The repression spawned the ETA (Euz-kadi ta Azkatusuna--Basque Homeland and Liberty) a separatist resistance organization, which among other acts of violence killed Franco's first Premier, Adm>al Luis Carrerro Blanco in 1973.

Basques are the most adamant in demanding regional autonomy (akin to U.S. states' rights). But these sentiments are echoed in Catalonia and to a lesser degree in Galicia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands. There is widespread support for the right of these areas to make their own basic decisions on education, public works and taxes.

Although post-Franco Spain is eager for closer relations with Western Europe, joining NATO is not an immediate prospect. Membership, in any case, will not affect a Washington-Madrid defense cooperation pact, which runs until 1981. Washington already has a warm relationship with Suarez. There was also admiration for Spain's progress in Britain last week. "The secret of Juan Carlos' success," reflected one Spain watcher, "was his rejection of the old men of the civil war and the middle-aged leaders of the Opus Dei [the secretive Catholic lay organization] in favor of his own generation of Spaniards."

With profound pride Spanish newspapers hailed the election as a "triumph of moderation" and praised the orderly way in which it was conducted. At week's end, after most of the votes were finally tallied, a Madrid intellectual expressed the emotions of his countrymen. "There is," he said, "deep down, a happiness about this transition, about the possibility of taking political consensus in hand. Now our people have got to decide to live together and to disagree in a civilized way."

"Spain will surprise you. " --Premier Adolfo Suarez.

August 1976

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.