A Vote for Democracy

A year after Francisco Franco's death, the rubber-stamp parliament in Madrid moved Spain along the road to democracy in a curious way--by voting itself out of existence. After three days of sometimes emotional debate, the Cortes overwhelmingly approved (425 to 59, with 13 abstentions) the government's political reform bill (TIME, Nov. 1), thereby promising Spain a Western-style democracy for the first time in 40 years. Under the provisions of the law, a bicameral legislature (a 350-member elected congress of deputies and a 207-member senate) will replace the present Cortes, in which less than one-fifth of the Deputies are popularly elected. These political reforms will be submitted for approval to the Spanish people in a referendum, probably in mid-December. Elections for the new legislature are to be held by the summer of 1977.

Last week's decision by the Cortes was the most significant victory yet in the campaign by King Juan Carlos and Premier Adolfo Suarez to move Spain out of the Franco era toward democratic rule. Juan Carlos and the government could have bypassed the conservative Cortes and taken the political reforms directly to the Spanish people by way of a referendum. Last week the government released a poll showing that Spaniards favored passage of the bill by a margin of more than 20 to 1. From the beginning, however, the Suarez government has moved cautiously, in order to avoid alienating the powerful right-wingers who are still entrenched in the government and armed forces. The King relied heavily on Suarez, who prepared the delicate maneuvering that led to the Cortes showdown.

Miguel Primo de Rivera, nephew of the founder of the blue-shirted Falange and a man with good Franquista credentials, made the initial defense of the political reform bill in the Cortes. "We are conscious of the fact," said Primo de Rivera, "that we must move from a personal regime to one of participation, without a break and without violence ... We must begin the future with optimism, without rancor for the past and without forgetting that we have an obligation to the present and the future."

While Suarez listened impassively on the blue leather government bench, Blas Pinar, head of an ultra-right group calling itself Fuerza Nueva (New Force) attacked the reform as a "stupid mask." Another right-wing coalition, the Popular Alliance, threatened that its more than 100 members would abstain from voting unless majority representation replaces the government's proposal that seats in the lower house be allotted by proportional representation. In the end, Alliance leaders and other conservatives were satisfied by a modest technical compromise on voting procedures.

Austerity Measures. Suarez's clever stage-managing of the reform bill was fresh evidence that his government is navigating with some confidence down the political middle. Shortly before the Cortes vote, the left made itself felt when Spain's illegal but officially tolerated trade-union blocs staged what they described as a one-day general strike to protest government austerity measures. But the most remarkable thing about the only partially successful strike was its restraint--clear evidence that even labor's leftists hoped that the reform bill would pass.

Meanwhile, the government is limiting the right of die-hard Franquistas to keep the memory of el Caudillo alive. It reluctantly granted a request by the archconservative National Veterans Federation to commemorate the first anniversary of Franco's death with a rally in Madrid's Plaza de Oriente. The demonstration consisted of 30 minutes of prayers for Franco, the reading of his last message to Spain and the singing of songs from the Spanish civil war.

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