In 1975 , a before and after was marked in the political history of Spain. On November 20 of that same year, the dictator Francisco Franco died , who, for four decades, marked a black stage in our country.
After the assassination of Franco’s right-hand man in 1973 , Luis Carrero Blanco , by the terrorist group ETA , took over as head of a continuing “government” Carlos Arias Navarro , who had to resign in 1976 due to social demands and democratic demands of a Spanish people in need of ballot boxes.
And, consequently, the first elections of the modern democratic stage arrived onJune 15, 1977 , a year and a half after the death of the dictator. A total of 63 political formations appeared at this historic electoral appointment with well-known acronyms such as PSOE , PNV or Spanish Falange de la JONS; the PCE (integrated into the IU), or Alianza Popular (refounded as Partido Popular), also had their space.
However, they won an acronym, UCD (Union de Centro Democratico), which no longer exists today. From that moment on, a new journey began with Adolfo Suarez, which kicked off a unique period that has lasted more than 40 years.
Next, we will make a brief tour of the seven presidents of our most recent history.
First democratic president
Although he acceded to the Government after the resignation of Arias Navarro in 1976, Adolfo Suarez (1932), at the head of UCD, was victorious in the first general elections after the dictatorship and would do so again in 1979 (a year earlier, our country already had a Constitution ). However, the political erosion and the tension produced by a residual Francoist sector caused his Government to suffer.
He had to face a motion of censure in 1980 presented by the PSOE , although he decided to resign in January 1981 .
He has always been considered one of the most important figures of the transition . He passed away on March 23, 2014 at the age of 81.
The president of the coup d’etat (February 1981-December 1982)
Unlike almost all presidents, who have been trained in Law , Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo (1926) was a Civil Engineer, Canals and Ports.
He participated in the creation of UCD and was part of the party, which is why, after the resignation of Adolfo Suarez, he obtained the presidency of the Government in a very convulsive 1981 .In fact, during his inauguration, the attempted coup d’etat took place (on February 23 of that same year) by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero .
He was in charge of the shortest mandate in the history of democracy, resigning in 1982 as president of his political party. In 2005 he joined the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and, in 2007, he participated in the creation of the Spanish Transition Foundation .
Always considered one of the fathers of the transition, he died on May 3, 2008 at the age of 82.
The president with the most years in office (December 1982-May 1996)
Felipe Gonzalez (1942), after a long political career that began at a very young age, obtained the first victory in the PSOE elections in 1982 , with an absolute majority; results that would be repeated in 1986 and 1989 . In 1993 he was president again but with a simple majority .
His long mandate (13 years and 5 months) highlights the existence of the GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion), a paramilitary organizationresponsible for persecuting the members of the terrorist group ETA.
Although the degree of knowledge and participation of the Government of Gonzalez in one of the biggest scandals of Spanish democracy is unknown, this scandal precipitated the defeat of the PSOE in the 1996 elections .
In the image, the so-called “Trio de las Azores”, with Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, George W. Bush, President of the United States, and Jose Maria Aznar, President of Spain at that time.
In the image, the so-called “Trio de las Azores”, with Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, George W. Bush, President of the United States, and Jose Maria Aznar, President of Spain at that time.
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The president of the Trio de las Azores (May 1996-April 2004)
Jose Maria Aznar (1953) joined Alianza Popular (AP) from a very young age, of which he was secretary general in 1979 . In 1989 he was sworn in as national president of the refounded Popular Party (PP), succeeding Manuel Fraga .
After a tough opposition that clearly wore down a tired Felipe Gonzalez, he won the general elections on March 3, 1996 , leading the government for two terms.
His support for the war in Iraq -represented with the photo of Aznar himself, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, and US President George W. Bush at the Azores Summit , where they issued an ultimatum to Iraq to proceed with disarmament , assuming the existence of chemical weapons- it would mark his last term in office.
The president of the crisis (April 2004-December 2011)
For the 2004 elections, Jose Maria Aznar proposedMariano Rajoy as a candidate , who was the general secretary of the PP. However, three days before the elections, the 11M attacks took place, perpetrated by the jihadist terrorist group Al Qaeda.. A disastrous management of events, trying to divert attention from what happened to the terrorist group ETA, determined the electoral failure of the Popular Party, leading Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to Moncloa as the new president (1960).
During its two legislatures, the Zapatero Government developed a progressive program with actions as notable as the legalization of homosexual marriage, as well as the approval of laws against Gender Violence, the Equality Law, the Historical Memory Law or the Law of Dependency. Likewise, he was the first joint executive between men and women in the history of Spain.
However, his second legislature was marked by the economic crisisreaching in 2013 more than 6 million unemployed .
The president of corruption (December 2011-June 2018)
Mariano Rajoy (1955) picked up the witness in 2011 obtaining an absolute majority marking aeconomic policy readjustments in order to solve the economic crisis .
Before becoming president he had solvency in the politics of the Aznar Government as Minister of Public Administrations (1996-1999) and Minister of Education and Culture (1999-2000).
Repeated corruptionscandalsdotted _ _ _dozens of members of his party , especially because of the so-called Gurtel plot , which gave way to a motion of censure led by the PSOE that did not allow him to finish the legislature and resulted in his departure from the Government on June 1, 2018 .
The president of the motion of censure (June 2018)
Pedro Sanchez (1972) will go down in history for being president thanks to the first motion of censure that goes ahead in Spanish democracy. His solvency with languages ​​is also remarkable, having been a member of the cabinet of the United Nations High Representative in Bosnia during the Kosovo War.(1999).
In the last general elections on April 28, 2019 , the PSOE, with Sanchez at the helm, won with 123 seats, although since then numerous attempts to form a government through pacts have been unsuccessful.
So much so, that new elections have had to be called for November 10 where, faced with a convulsive panorama, with new actors, anything can happen. We will have to wait, however, to find out the name of the next president of Spain.
