Spain has begun two years of anniversaries. On the 20th of November, the country marked fifty years since the death of its former dictator, Francisco Franco, and the memorials keep coming. Every day seems to mark another 50th anniversary for the milestones of Spain’s transition to democracy. Each anniversary marks a step towards Spain’s modern liberal status quo formalised by the Constitution of 1978.
A half century later, though, this system is under threat.
The root of Spain’s division is simple: Spaniards don’t like their government. British readers may sympathise, but Spain is currently unable to vote for a government that Spanish non-separatists want. As I have covered before, the balance of power in Spanish politics is, at present, controlled by separatists who will never allow a right-wing Spanish nationalist-adjacent government into power. As long as Spain’s electoral arithmetic stays the same, it is extremely difficult for the majority of those who consider themselves Spanish to get the government for which they vote.. Predictably, this is a recipe for trouble.
With this in mind, politics has become extra-democratic. Unable to do anything in Congress, Spanish conservatives have increasingly turned to the judiciary. For the last few years, Spanish politics has been overrun by the word “lawfare”, although with a heavy Spanish accent. Last week this erupted with the conviction of the Attorney General for leaking confidential information relating to the conservatives’ Partido Popular (PP) regional leader of Madrid, Isabel Ayuso’s partner. The Supreme Court was split 5–2 on the ruling, which forced the attorney general’s resignation. There was no smoking gun — with no direct evidence that any government member leaked the information — but the court found the circumstantial evidence enough to convict him. While the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, “accepted” the decision, he maintained that his now former attorney general was innocent.
This is not an isolated incident either. Paralysed in Parliament, Spain’s political right has launched multiple partisan prosecutions of figures close to Pedro Sánchez, including his wife Begoña Gómez. Some of these have been on firmer ground than others, but this push led to Pedro Sánchez saying, “there’s no doubt that there are judges doing politics and there are politicians trying to do justice”.
This battle between executive and judiciary might have created a lot of smoke but only reveals the powerlessness of establishment conservatism. Ione Belarra, leader of the far-left Podemos, called the conviction of the attorney general a “political assassination”, and criticised the centre-left government for not doing more to resist it. Despite these complaints, the government will go on and a new Attorney General will be found. Indeed, the entire incident has created a rally-around-the-flag effect for the socialist prime minister, under pressure from separatists over corruption and immigration. Such reliance on “lawfare” is partly due to the PP and even Vox growing ever more restless, as otherwise they can only dial up the rhetoric. Nevertheless, there are others who want more direct action.
The 20th of November doesn’t only mark the death of Francisco Franco. The streets of Madrid were filled that night with placards bearing the face of José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Founder of the Falange — the leading Spanish branch of fascism — he was murdered by republican soldiers in 1936 after being imprisoned two months before the abortive nationalist coup in July of that year. Seven hundred modern Falangists marched through Madrid from the offices of the governing PSOE to those of the PP on the Calle Génova. As they shouted the fascist slogan “Presente” and performed Roman salutes, references to the 1930s were redundant.
The demonstration was an eclectic mix of calls for “remigration”, a slogan of the modern far right, and symbols of the 1930s such as the Yoke and Arrows — the Spanish version of the fasces. They were demonstrating “against the genocide of ‘78”, meaning Spanish liberal democracy as a whole. Some called for the murder of the prime minister.
The compromise which typified the system of 1978 is becoming harder and harder to sustain
It’s important to state that the Falange are still beyond fringe, but they represent the outermost edge of an increasingly radical Spanish right. The right are comfortably ahead in the polls, but because of the separatists, they will have to win decisively. Any right-wing government will be reliant on the hard right in Vox, most probably in coalition. Formed in opposition to Basque nationalist politics, Vox’s role in any government would likely lead to scenes similar to Catalonia’s abortive, unsanctioned referendum.
As Spain’s liberal system has been challenged by economic and migratory crises, the Civil War has become politically acute. The compromise which typified the system of 1978 is becoming harder and harder to sustain. In 2022, the Law of Democratic Memory passed by a very small margin along left–right lines. While providing state support for more exhumations, the banning of pro-franco groups and repealing Franco era legislation were polarising. The law, and its 2008 predecessor, push back against the “Pact of Forgetting” on which Spain’s constitution was built. As Author Arturo Perez Reverte has said, this state-enforced Manichean view of the Civil War is not a matter of healing “open” wounds but “re-opening” them. While this may buttress the left-wing vote temporarily, the hard-right Vox have only grown stronger and more militant. The nation which invented the fifth column is increasingly turning in on itself.
Bismarck is reputed to have said, “Spain is the strongest country in the world, it has spent centuries trying to destroy itself and hasn’t yet succeeded.” He didn’t actually say this — a Spanish politician made it up — but it remains true. After the French Revolution, Spain endured an almost two-hundred-year-long war to define itself, with only fleeting Pyrrhic victors. As the country begins what will be two years of anniversaries, the country’s politicians would do well to focus less on the past and more on the future.
