SPAIN: VOTERS SAY 'S

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At week's end, Suárez began forming a new government. He revealed that he had submitted his resignation to the King on election day. "Given the results of the elections," he added, "he has confirmed me in my post." González, meanwhile, ruled out the possibility that his party would join a coalition with the U.C.D. But the Socialists' strong showing in the popular vote prompted him to call for early municipal elections. González also reflected some dissatisfaction with the electoral law, which disproportionately favors rural, conservative areas over urban centers. The U.C.D. thus was enabled to win nearly half the seats in the lower house while getting a third of the vote. The new parliament, said González, should be dissolved after writing a constitution, and new elections held (its official term is four years).

No one under 64 in Spain had ever voted before in an election. Yet the people, somewhat to their own surprise, went to the polls as if they had been doing it all their lives. "It is so normal," said one young woman activist of the Socialist Workers Party, "that it makes you think we have been living in a democracy for the last 40 years."

In Madrid and other major cities, long queues of expectant voters, their identification papers in hand, were waiting well before the 9 a.m. opening of the polls on a clear, brisk day. Many had already filled out their ballots at home, and came prepared to drop their two envelopes (one for the Congress of Deputies, one for the Senate) into transparent plastic urns. As a precautionary measure, police were on duty at all 38,000 polling stations across the country. Army troops guarded power installations, communications points and some buildings. But even a dozen or so small bombs set off by terrorists (without much damage) failed to dampen the mood of the day. Said Communist Party Leader Carrillo, who only six months ago was arrested after he returned home from exile in Paris: "The happiest single moment for me was being able to cast my vote."

Just as in countries where democracy is deeply rooted, there were refreshingly bizarre incidents to e'nliven the day. In Madrid, one overanxious poll watcher smashed an urn in what a newspaper described as a "fit of nerves." An angry voter in the capital tried to stuff a copy of Franco's last testament into the ballot box. Two nuns were arrested in Malaga for distributing, of all things, Communist propaganda near the polls. In Castellon de la Plana, on the Mediterranean coast, voters allowed a young man and woman to step to the front of the line so they could get to their wedding ceremony on time. In Valladolid, two elderly women—accustomed to voting either si or no in the tame referendums of Franco's day—turned away from the polls in bewilderment when they were told that this time they had to make a choice from among political candidates.