23/03/2014
José María Aznar. President of FAES Foundation
“The path to provide this country with a Constitution which, like His Majesty the King stated in these same Cortes, will offer a place for each Spaniard, will enshrine the rights and freedoms of citizens and will offer legal protection to all cases which might occur in a plural society, is open. While we await the Constitution, it seems clear that the democratic process is now irreversible. The spirit of the Crown, our people’s maturity and the responsibility and realism of political parties have made it irreversible.”
In this truly moving way, Adolfo Suárez summarised in October 1977 what we have so often called “the spirit of the Transition”, which he himself embodied. His words express a historical truth. It is true that the 1977 general elections and the economic agreements concluded shortly after opened for good the doors to draft what finally became the 1978 Constitution. It is true that a rights and freedoms system able to provide the political and social pluralism of a modern society such as that of Spain with legal protection began to be built. It is true that the Crown was the driving force and His Majesty the King the pilot of the change. And, finally, it is true that the realism of political parties was decisive at crucial moments.
However, Adolfo Suárez did not tell then the whole truth. All those factors could have evolved in very different directions without his political intelligence, civic commitment, patriotism and generosity; those of Adolfo Suárez, our first democratic Prime Minister. To sum up: Transition and democracy would not have been possible as they were without what defines the great figures of History, Adolfo Suárez’s greatness.
The Transition and the constituent process were not easy or unavoidable, as it is sometimes suggested. They were the result of thoughtful political choices. They were the product of decisions of historical significance that put Spain’s future at stake. And they were correct decisions. They enabled true and heartfelt reconciliation and harmony, which were formulated in plenty of legal and symbolic initiatives and which are best expressed in the Constitution.
Suarez’s figure, like that of His Majesty the King, has reached throughout the years an outstanding dimension. However, this was not always the case. Following Franco’s death, many sought to start a rupturist and disintegrating path that regarded the King and Suárez as an obstacle to overcome. This was under consideration until well into the constituent process. But the Political Reform set the right course. This is, the Spanish people did, because the Government wisely decided that it should be done that way.
Now that the word “democracy” is so often misused, we should recall that during those years, Spaniards—all of them, throughout Spain—went to the polls in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979. The Transition was a political process designed and developed for Spaniards, but also a political process that was done with Spaniards, by Spaniards. Spaniards were the true protagonists, because people like Adolfo Suárez understood that it was the only way to make their deep aspiration for freedom and justice possible, to morally and legally protect the path to democracy against those who waited for an opportunity to discredit it. And because they truly felt part of them, of those aspirations, of that desire for change. The Crown set the course toward full democracy, and Suárez—and so many others, admirably, with him—found a path and made it accessible and safe for Spaniards. Suárez found the path to freedom.
These days, much will be said about Adolfo Suárez. Some of the information will be more known, and some less. The youngest might never have heard about him, and might even be surprised by how, for once, the vast majority of Spaniards, regardless of their ideology or region, sincerely regret something together, sincerely recall something united, are proud of the same thing. Suárez deserves it.
At times when the work of the Transition is at risk because some people have decided to put it that way, we need to recall some essential things. By relying on the values, virtues and institutions which Suárez decisively contributed to build, Spain has managed to become something very similar to what we dreamed to become forty years ago. However, by moving away from it, we lost our sense, we split up, we were weakened and we were impoverished. The reasons of our problems cannot be found in the years of the Transition or in our Constitution, like some people state. Quite the opposite, we can find in them the examples to follow. Those who were responsible for providing our country with political freedom did a work which will last forever as an example of what a nation which was regarded by many as evicted by History is able to do when it is governed by good and intelligent men, men like Adolfo Suárez.
Men who tie their destiny to that of their country and who only understand their lives that way.
I met Adolfo and I was his friend. I tried to follow his example; I, like everyone else, owe his political work, and voluntarily became—like many others—his legatee, one of the best decisions of my political life and one of the best decisions that can be made by anyone who wants to do responsible politics in Spain. I believe that the things that I have been able to do owe a lot to what I learnt from him: to integrate, to include, to welcome, to open in politics spaces for consensus and meeting. I have always believed in a project of ideological and personal integration which, in my opinion, and under said inspiration, can well be considered as living proof of what Alfonso Suárez wanted for Spain.
Today, we once again have that same historical obligation as a country. And I am convinced that Adolfo Suárez would not have wished a better tribute from all of us, from all Spaniards, than watching us learn how to be once again a true nation which becomes the protagonist of a historical milestone as brilliant as the one which he and his generation made possible for all of us.
Rest in peace Adolfo Suárez, father of the Spanish democracy.