Socialists on the Move

By Marguerite Johnson

While the military sulks, the voters look left to Gonzalez

Felipe! Felipe!" came the joyous chants from 10,000 supporters who had gathered at the soccer stadium in the industrial city of Valladolid for the campaign rally. As the candidate with the flashing smile and thick black hair took the stage, the crowd clapped and cheered its approval. "After 150 years of govern-ment by the right, we must try to put this country on the march," he declared, stabbing the air in a gesture of challenge. "And that can only be done by the Socialist Party!"

The speaker was Socialist Leader Felipe Gonzalez, 40, the most popular politician in Spain and the overwhelming favorite to win next week's parliamentary elections. That would put him in position to become Spain's first leftist Prime Minister since the end of the civil war in 1939. Gonzalez's remarkable ascendancy reflects, at least in part, the fact that Spanish democracy has matured in the seven years since the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. King Juan Carlos, while not endorsing any party in the campaign, is understood to believe that the country's fragile institutions can be strengthened and even improved by successful alternations of power.

But the prospect of a Socialist victory has also raised fears that military right-wingers might try to intervene. The danger was given new credence when authorities early this month uncovered a detailed army conspiracy to seize power on the eve of the election. Three artillery colonels have been arrested and held for trial on charges of sedition, and other plotters were placed under house arrest. The two major conspirators convicted for the 1981 coup attempt to seize the Cortes, Lieut. General Jaime Milans del Bosch and Lieut. Colonel Antonio Tejero Madrid were suspected of involvement in the new plot and swiftly transferred to different prisons. The country reacted calmly, but the aborted coup injected a new factor of suspense into the campaign. Said Gonzalez last week: "We have all spent years trying to re-create a civilized Spain, a dignified Spain, a Spain with pride in democracy and liberty, and those 5% who don't want that do not belong in our system."

The growing popularity of the Socialists has largely coincided with the collapse of the Union of the Democratic Center (U.C.D.), the coalition of right-wing and center parties that has governed the country since its first democratic elections in 1977. After 45 deputies defected from both the right and left wings of the party over the past eight months, wiping out its effective majority in the Congress of Deputies, Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo asked King Juan Carlos to dissolve parliament and hold new elections five months ahead of schedule.

Since he took over the Socialist leadership in 1974, Gonzalez has built a reputation for moderation. In 1979, for example, he persuaded the party to drop the term Marxist from its platform. He has supported the government on such issues as antiterrorist laws and regional autonomy, and proceeded to mold the party in the pattern of social democratic parties elsewhere in Western Europe. The result has been growing public confidence in the party's ability to govern.

The Socialists have also profited from the same yearning for political change that has brought socialists to power in France and Greece in the past year and a half. Their campaign slogan, appropriately, is "Por el Cambio" (For a Change). But the party's most effective asset is Gonzalez. Although his youth and tweedy good looks make him resemble a college instructor more than a future Prime Minister, Gonzalez, a former labor lawyer who grew up in Seville, projects both confidence and sincerity. "Everybody calls me Felipe," he confesses with a grin, even such senior European socialist leaders as French President Francois Mitterrand and West German Social Democratic Party Chairman Willy Brandt.

Although Gonzalez evokes the sort of public adulation that engulfed Robert F. Kennedy in the U.S., he has mounted an uncharacteristically low-key campaign. Explains a party strategist: "The voters on the left are already convinced. We have to aim our message at the peasants and small shopkeepers in the backward, religiously oriented parts of Castile and Galicia, where the balance of this election is going to be decided." Acknowledged a senior centrist politician last week: "Gonzalez has achieved something very important--he has not aroused fear."

One reason is that Gonzalez does not sound much like a leftist. He has promised not to invite Communists into his government. He has little respect for Communist Leader Santiago Carrillo, 67, whom he calls "a bad prophet and a bad political leader." Carrillo, in turn, dismisses Gonzalez as an "amateur." If the Socialists do not obtain an absolute majority (176 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies), Gonzalez could seek parliamentary support from former Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez, who quit the U.C.D. in August to form his new Democratic and Social Center Party. Although Suarez has not had time to build a major campaign organization, he could win enough seats to play the role of powerbroker. If that happens,Suarez has said, "the Socialists could expect our respect and support."

To reassure business leaders, Gonzalez has promised not to follow the example of France's Mitterrand by nationalizing major companies, except for Spain's electrical system. As he told TIME in an interview last week: "The political, economic and social realities of Spain are substantially distinct from those of France." The main issue of the campaign has been the country's deep recession and its painful unemployment, now running at 16%. To combat the problem, the Socialists have pledged to create 800,000 jobs over the next four years, extend unemployment benefits to farm workers, and regulate credit so as to control inflation and at the same time provide more assistance to small businesses. Instead of raising taxes, the Socialists say they would more vigorously enforce laws against tax evasion. That alone, says a Gonzalez associate, would generate $10 billion a year for the national treasury, roughly the equivalent of the current budget deficit.

Gonzalez opposed the government's decision to join NATO last December. "Our attitude is that from a defense point of view there is no need for Spain to join NATO," he told TIME. Gonzalez proposes to put the issue to a national referendum, though he acknowledges that this is not a "high priority." He also wants to have another look at the recently negotiated agreement that allows the U.S. to have three air and naval bases in Spain.

The Socialist's most vocal opponent is Manuel Fraga, 59, leader of the rightist Alianza Popular and a Minister of Information and Tourism in the Franco regime. Projecting himself as the embodiment of Spanish conservatism, Fraga advocates restoring the death penalty for terrorists, "the defense of the family" (a code phrase for opposition to abortion and divorce), and above all, strong government. "If my government had been in power," he proclaimed at a rally in Seville, "you can be sure this intended coup would never have taken place." The implication, of course, was that if the right were returned to power, the military would be content and not interfere.

Although Fraga's party picked up some support as the campaign progressed, it still trails far behind the Socialists. Despite an unusually high number of undecided voters (45%), the latest poll published by the Diario 16 newspaper gave the Socialists nearly 30% of the decided vote, vs. 9.5% for Fraga's Alianza. The beleaguered U.C.D., meanwhile, slipped from nearly 7% one month ago to 4.2% under the lackluster leadership of outgoing Cortes President Landelino Lavilla. Neither of the two political extremes were faring well either. Carrillo's Communists, riven by generational and ideological divisions, were all but eclipsed by the Socialists. Polls gave them only 4% of the decided vote. The noisy, neofascist Fuerza Nueva led by Blas Pinar, a former Franco official, could well lose its single seat in the Cortes.

As more details of the latest aborted coup attempt emerged, talk of the effect that the conspiracy would have on the lection was rife. Most politicians thought that it would cut both ways, with the fear vote going to the right, while a defiant, antimilitary vote would mainly benefit the Socialists. The speculation served as a reminder of how fragile Spanish democracy remains. Gonzalez's biggest challenge if le wins will be to persuade the military ;hat Spain will be better off with an armed brces that concentrates on defense, while the government remains a matter for civilians. --By Marguerite Johnson. Reported by Jordan Bonfante and V. Jane Walker/Madrid

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante, V. Jane Walker

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