SPAIN: VOTERS SAY 'S

• Share

"We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box. Spain has no foolish dreams."

—Generalissimo Francisco Franco, 1938

But Spain does have dreams, and they are not foolish. After four decades of repressive dictatorship, more than 20 million Spaniards went to the polls last week—massively, eagerly and peacefully—to reject the legacy of Francisco Franco's authoritarian rule and vote yes to democracy.

It was Spain's first free election in 41 years, and the results were a cautious endorsement of the astute young politician who was appointed by King Juan Carlos eleven months ago to guide the transition to democracy. Rejecting parties on both the far left and far right, the voters swept Premier Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez. 44, and his Democratic Center Union (U.C.D.), a center-right coalition of 15 parties, to within seven seats of an absolute majority in the lower house of the new Cortes.

Taking 34% of the popular vote, the U.C.D. emerged with 165 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies and 105 of the 207 elective seats in the Senate. The U.C.D.'s control of the upper house was reinforced when the King, exercising one of his prerogatives, appointed 41 senators on election day. The senators, many of whom are expected to support a new Suarez government, range from moderate to conservative.

The U.C.D.'s victory was won largely in Spain's agricultural and politically conservative provinces. Suárez's coalition got strong competition from the Socialist Workers Party, which won 28.5% of the popular vote, 119 seats in the lower chamber and 60 in the upper. The Socialists outpolled the U.C.D. in Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and in the Basque country, and held the U.C.D. to a draw in Madrid. "Our party has achieved a ringing success," said Socialist Leader Felipe González. "It has shown that it is a political force capable of responding to the political needs of the people." González, 35, a labor lawyer whose easy charm and insistent appeal sparked the Socialists' revival, firmly established himself and his party as a future alternative. The vote meant that the Socialists were again the country's largest single party—as they were before the civil war in 1936.

The other principal parties trailed far behind. The Communists did well in industrial Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia, but managed little more than 9% of the total vote and 20 seats in the lower house. Party Chief Santiago Carrillo, 62, easily won in Madrid, and the legendary Communist heroine Dolores ("La Pasionaria") Ibarruri, 81, regained the seat in the Asturias region that she had held before the civil war.

The voters also decisively rejected those who sought a return to the Fran co era. Former Interior Minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne's right-wing Popular Alliance picked up only 8.2% of the vote and 17 seats. Several prominent rightists, among them former Premier Carlos Arias Navarro and Bias Pinar, head of the neofascist New Force, lost their bids for seats in the new Cortes.