Spanish generals weigh up the political options

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Sumar lofti mav form a new bartv. Gonzales' party is looking towards power. Calvo sorelo s (rign, is jung upur....

Tejero's coup: the parliamentarians cowered cracy, years into *demopolitics today is still. the politics of miracles and military plots.

A number of fundamentalist Francoists realised last month that only a miracle could produce a right wing victory in the elections to the Andalucian parliament which were to bring limited regional 1. Insin'o doon autonomy o spams aeop and deeply depressed Conveniently the statue of the Virgin in the Basilica of San Juan de Dios in Granada began to weep tears of blood at the prospect (confirmed by public opinion polls) of an outright victory for Felipe Gonzalez' Socialist Party (PSOE).

The Virgin, however, cried in vain. The PSOE won with a landslide overall {majority of 53% which in a Ironoral AlertIon InOW 1a ATl expected this autumn) would bring them to power 11. -nationwide with a considerable parliamentary majority.

As significant as the Socialist victory was the share out of the other votes. The crisis-ridden Spanish Communist Party was squeezed to the extreme ar we margin by the Socialist victory. Its share of the vote fell from 13% in the 1979 general election to Possibly most significant of all was the share-out of d- andeand untos of the une reunceu vulco ve vie right. The government party, the Democratic Centre Union, was cut back to 13% of the vote (compared with 32% in Andalucia in 1979) while the further right Popular Alliance, led by Manuel Fraga surged ahead to become the first party of the bourgeoisie, taking 17% of the poll, compared with a mere 4% in 1979.

The UCD tried to patch up its battered authority by insisling bilal impintina that Andalri was a special case, But Andalucia followed • a similar reverse in Galicia.

And now the latest public opinion polls show the UCD with only 5 % support nationwide, which means it faces complete obliteration in the forthcoming general If, that is, it still exists by then; since one of the causes, as well as results, of the party's unpopularity, its leadership has been indulging for over a year in an amazing display of internecine political carnage.

The first big blow was struck when at the end of 1980 the founder of the UCD and first postFranco premier, Adolfo Suarez, was forced to resign. The rumours said at the time that the army threatened to rebel unless Suarez gave way to a leader prepared to take a harder line against ETA, the Basque nationalist organisation.

Attempt Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was the chosen successor. But his harder line against the Basques was not sufficient to prevent a part of the army going ahead anyway with the coup attempt on Until very recently the further development of Spanish politics has been overshadowed by that event.

What was supposed to be the new strong-arm administration was robbed of authority from the start. The image of its members cowering behind their parliamentary benches as the rehel civil guards stood VAAN vera bull novru by with machine guns is a long lasting one and has become somehow symbolic.

The coup attempt was ended without any intervention by the UCD government but because the majority of the army commanders decided that the time was not ripe.

The subsequent trial of the conspirators was universally regarded as a joke. Not much evidence was encouraged since most of it had an embarrassing habit of implicating the king in the plot. The whole laughable proceeding was controlled by the military and the defendants were openly scornful of their government prosecutors.

After a trial lasting whole year a handful of heavy verdicts were handed down lup to 30 years' ... and Carrillo's is crumbling ... ... while neo-Francoist Fraga ga jail) but most of the lesser figures received very light sentences.

Public outrage induced the government to appeal against the sentences. But that will certainly not allay a general air of cynicism over the trial since it was obvious to all that just about the whole of the military hierarchy was culpable.

Calvo Sotelo and the UCD leaders have played only bit parts in this, the main drama of Spanish politics of the last year. That has been one thing which has led to their incessant squabbling as the party factions present competitive plans to restore the party's authority.

But the humiliation inflicted by the attempted military coup and the failure to hold back the worsening economic tide has strongly aided the main opposition party, the Socialists, despite their own failings and their collaboration with the UCD on key issues.

As a result, the UCD factions have one by one come to realise that the ship is sinking and they have begun to leave it.

First to go were the Social Democrats who under former Justice Minister, Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, took their dozen MPs to form a new party.

Defeat

Now the Christian Democrats have begun to defect to Fraga's Popular Alliance. Only last week the Liberals, under Antonio Garriguez Walker, declared they were going to form a new breakaway party.

And most recently the fetid Spanish political air has been swirling with rumours that Adolfo Suarez (now a Duke) is himself going to break from the UCD and form his own At present it seems very improbable that any of the splinters of the UCD can survive to become the authoritative party of the Spanish bourgeoisie. Inat role appears to devolve, if on any civilian politicians, on the Popular Alliance (AP) of the old Franco loyalist Manuel Fraga.

His party is gaining not only voter support from the UCD but also substantial backing from sections of the Francoist military elite and pots of money from the right wing banks.

But, marginalised in the last general election, the AP still, despite recent gains, does not look poised to win a parliamen the majority just yet. masses of anti-Francoist voters who have been taken in by the UCD's professions of democracy will not easily forget the bloody political history of Manuel Fraga.

Vacuum

But the disintegration of the UCD underlines the deep power vacuum which now exists in the centre of Spanish government.

Who will fill it? In the short term there are only two possibilities. One is the Francoist military, the other is the Socialist Party. And the main underlying development in Spanish politics since February 23, 1981 has been the evolution of the interrelationship of these two potential political rulers of Spain.

The majority of Spain's many Generals concluded on February 23 that the timing of the military coup was not opportune. But by Hi Philli Irom we expertue UL that day they must have drawn important conclusions.

In nartiriler thev must JAI NEVIL AALL have seen that, before it became clear that the coup attempt had been aborted, it was evident that the amount of mass resistance which the main workers' and nationalist parties would or could organise was pitifully small.

The generals probably concluded that when they wanted to stage a coup they could do so without producing a civil war, even though national and international resistance might be prolonged and difficult. At the same time it has looked less and less likely in the months since the aborted coup that a new coup is imminent. This is certainly not as a result of any renewed confidence in the bourgeois politicians or new respect for democracy. It is rather because the military and the far right seem to have reached the conclusion that the Socialist Party must be permitted to take its turn in government.

Such a government would be expected to discipline the working class and disarm thé Basque nationalists of ETA.

How the PSOE has reached a position where it is both unchallenged in the Spanish opposition and workers' movement and is provisionally accepted as a possible government by the Francoist generals will be discussed in a subsequent article. Goblenio • tirme elparo TANTO E In Goblerno firme ravenca elparda ISARESTRÁ FLEXE

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iocialist Organiser no 93 August 12 1982. Page 14

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