SPAIN: AFTER FRANCO: HOPE AND FEAR

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Despite his disagreeable record as Spain's top cop, Arias turned out to be something of a reformist Premier during his 20 months in office, advocating a scheme to permit "political associations" to organize and participate in local elections. The left, though, harshly criticizes him for backtracking on these reforms after he encountered opposition from the men in the "bunker."

Most probably the King will lean heavily on the Franco Establishment—the only politicians he has ever known—and risk leftist anger by forming a "government of national unity" under the premiership of either Arias or another moderate rightist. One possible candidate: Manuel Fraga Iribarne, head of an important center-rightist opposition group that includes many prominent politicians. As Minister of Tourism and Information in the 1960s, Fraga was the architect both of Spain's astounding tourist boom and of a press-law revision that relaxed censorship somewhat. Any new Premier of the moderate right, including Arias, might be tolerable to the moderate left—at least at the start—if the most obdurate hard-liners were dropped from the Cabinet and replaced by new ministers willing to introduce a cautious liberalization.

The most dangerous course the new regime could take would be to ignore the pressures for change that have been surging through Spain for nearly two years. Last winter, after demonstrations by dissatisfied students calling for reforms of the universities and the political system, the government retaliated by closing the country's ten universities for periods of up to eight months. Workers, though prohibited by law from striking, have nonetheless walked off the job in wildcat actions in thousands of plants and offices; they have been protesting rising prices and the ban on free unions.

There have also been signs of dissatisfaction on the right. The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, long a key pillar of Franco's reign, has become increasingly impatient with the regime's refusal to change. Last spring the Roman Catholic Episcopal Conference endorsed reforms to ensure freedom of assembly and speech. In industrial and mining centers, many parish priests have been supporting the illegal comisiones obreras (underground labor unions), allowing them to meet in the churches and distributing food to their members when they strike. A center-rightist "study group," whose members include Manuel Fraga Iribarne and the Count of Motrico, a leading monarchist, two months ago demanded that the regime "change from an authoritarian to a democratic system."

Franco crudely and contemptuously dismissed his opposition as "yapping dogs," even though most of the moderates' demands for change are far from revolutionary. They would probably be satisfied, for a start, with such reforms as legalizing trade unions and allowing political parties to organize and compete with the Movimiento Nacional. Many of the Socialists, for instance, seem willing to give a Juan Carlos regime a chance. A moderate politician probably caught the mood of most Spaniards when he said that the post-Franco evolution must come "poco a poco [little by little]. We do not want Lisbon street scenes here."