"I Enjoy Politics"

Spain's best-known and best-liked politician, now the Prime Minister-elect, is universally called by his first name. It thunders from the throats of thousands of supporters at campaign rallies, and it is even heard on the tongues of such European Socialist leaders as West Germany's Willy Brandt and French President Franc,ois Mitterrand. "Everybody calls me Felipe. Everywhere," acknowledges Felipe Gonzalez, 40, the handsome, confident leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (P.S.O.E.), flashing his famous smile.

But for all his informality, Gonzalez cultivated a serious new image for this year's campaign. Sober suits and ties have replaced the rumpled slacks and open collars, and a sleek layered haircut has tamed his once unruly black locks. He has also brought a harddriving, businesslike approach to politics. During the campaign, for example, he directed a skilled and efficient team, and consulted regularly with an eight-man brain trust from Spanish universities. The son of a dairy worker, Gonzalez was born and raised in Seville. He was the only one of four children to receive a higher education, studying law at the University of Seville. He took a course in labor law at Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain, and was exposed to European leftist politics through books that were banned in his own country. His reading included news about the struggles of the Spanish Communist Party and the expulsion in 1964 of two prominent members, Writer Jorge Semprun and Marxist Economic Theorist Fernando Claudin, for breaches of party discipline. Gonzalez realized his freedom-loving mind could never fit into so narrow a mold. Says he: "Claudin and Semprun are responsible for my being a Socialist today, not a Communist." Gonzalez joined the party's youth wing, the Young Socialists, at a time when all political parties were banned and membership could result in a jail term. After earning his degree in 1966, he became a labor lawyer in Seville.

Around that time, Spain's Socialists were also beginning to change. A group of militant young firebrands, including Gonzalez, who were not afraid to operate openly in the country began to challenge the old leadership, which consisted largely of members exiled in Europe and Latin America. During one confrontation, Socialist Leader Rodolfo Llopis was appalled to find Gonzalez using his own name in politics. To placate Llopis, Gonzalez adopted the nom de guerre Isidore. By 1972 Gonzalez and his colleagues had wrested control of the party from the old guard. Two years later, he was elected secretary-general. Under Gonzalez's leadership, the P.S.O.E. deftly positioned itself for the post-Franco era, outmaneuvering several other leftist parties to become the leading left-of-center force in Spain.

One of Gonzalez's most daring acts, and an index of his determination to move the Socialists into the political mainstream, was his insistence on dropping the word Marxist from the party's program. This caused such a furor that in 1979 Gonzalez resigned. "In spite of my absolute respect for the works of Marx and for his contribution to the fight of the working class, I would find it hard to call myself a Marxist," he said at the time. "I think there are many worthy things in Marx. What I don't believe is that his words are dogma." A few months later, Gonzalez was re-elected head of a newly de-Marxified Socialist party.

The campaign left Gonzalez little time for any private life. When not on the hustings, he lives with his wife Carmen, a junior high school teacher, and their three small children in a cramped Madrid apartment. He has few opportunities to go on the long weekend walks he enjoys, and to save his voice for the two or three speeches he had to give every day during the campaign, he had to cut down on his beloved Havana panatelas, a regular gift from Cuba's Fidel Castro. But Gonzalez has no regrets. "I am in politics because I enjoy it," he says. "The day I stop enjoying it will be the time to give up." That day is not likely to come soon.

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