25/03/2014
Cristina Palomares, PhD in International History from the London School of Economics. Author of: Sobrevivir después de Franco: evolución y triunfo del reformismo, 1964-1977 (Alianza Editorial). Former FAES Foundation Coordinator of Programmes for Europe
Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez left an important and indelible imprint on Spain’s contemporary history. Suárez was key to the successful achievement of the peaceful and legal transition from Franco’s regime to a democracy which has lasted for nearly four decades. However, nearly all his political successes were unexpected, including becoming Prime Minister in 1976.
Following the fall of Carlos Arias’s disastrous government, Adolfo Suárez – who was practically unknown to the public – unexpectedly made it into the final shortlist of three to become prime minister. Suárez came third after Gregorio López-Bravo and Federico Silva, but the King unexpectedly ignored the result and chose Suárez for the job. However, the two obvious candidates to become prime minister were Manuel Fraga and José Manuel Areilza, but they surprisingly did not survive the first round of voting. Despite being qualified for the position, the King had ruled them out because Fraga had been Franco’s minister, and Areilza had been a member of Don Juan’s Private Council.
The young King had chosen Suárez some time ago to conduct the difficult manoeuvre of turning 180 degrees the boat of the country. Suarez was a friendly and ambitious young man but he lacked the intellect of his opponents and was inexperienced in Spain’s turbulent politics that beset Spain in the mid 1970s. Nonetheless, the King saw qualities in him which made him believe that he was the right person for the job.
Although they already knew each other, the relationship between the then-Prince and Suárez began to develop from 1969, when the latter was civil governor of Segovia. According to his biographer, Abel Hernández, and his son, Adolfo Suárez Illana, Suárez wrote some notes at the request of Prince Juan Carlos on how he would manage the transition from Franco’s regime to democracy. Suarez argued that it was necessary to carefully dismantle Franco’s political system from within. Nobody seems to have seen these papers and, for many, they were a mere rumour. However, the address delivered by the King following Alfonso Suárez’s death, which referred to “Adolfo and I” as the drivers of the Transition, could imply that they existed.
His appointment caused unease in all sectors of Spanish politics. From Ricardo de la Cierva’s famous “what a mistake, what a huge mistake”, or Ramón Tamames’s “historic mistake,” to “The Blackout” which appeared on the front page of Cuadernos para el Diálogo, the Spanish press was confused and pessimistic about his appointment. Even the foreign press was suspicious of him; the British newspaper The Observer stated that Suárez lacked “all qualities the King was believed to be looking for when [he] decided to challenge the Francoist bunker …[Suárez] lacks experience (…),is a man of the system, with his roots firmly rooted in the ideology of the old regime”.
Indeed, Suárez was a product of the regime. He began to steer his path to politics from the ranks of Acción Católica in Ávila. But it was his relationship with Fernando Herrero Tejedor - whom he met when the latter was civil governor and provincial leader of the Movimiento in Ávila in the mid 1950s - that allowed him to know the heart of the Movimiento through the different positions he held throughout the 1960s. As The Observer stated, Suárez was clearly a man of the Movimiento. However, Santiago Carrillo was one of the few who looked beyond his association with Franco’s regime. After hearing Suárez defend the Political Associations Act in June 1976, Carrillo thought he sounded more like a democrat than a fascist. The fact that Suárez’s father and grandfather were Republicans and that he had a relative living in Paris who was a member of the Spanish Communist Party did not escape the Communist leader either.
These days a lot will be written about the life and the achievements of Suárez. I would highlight his ability to get both Franco’s procuradores and the members of the democratic opposition on his side. Of course, he was not alone in that task. Torcuato Fernández-Miranda and Colonel Gutiérrez Mellado were, among others, essential figures in smoothing the way towards the Transition. But his personality and character were the key elements that led to the successful outcome of the process. The unexpected and well-crafted success of the Political Reform Act in the Cortes was just the beginning of what was to come. From then on, all the achievements of Suárez’s Government were unexpected: the legalisation of the Communist Party, the amnesty granted to all political prisoners and the democratic elections, to name but a few.
In order to appreciate Suárez’s figure we might need to imagine what type of Transition we would have had if the presidency of the Government had been held by someone else. Suárez was the unexpected Prime Minister who restored the Spaniards' hope to finally build together a better Spain. Sadly, in recent years Suárez had lost the memory of all this; however, we the Spaniards keep the memory for him.