SPAIN: VOTERS SAY 'S

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Censorship still exists—though it is not as stiff as before—but enforcement can be confused and capricious. The authorities have not tried to close Madrid, Mortal Sin, a lively revue—complete with a nude scene —that pokes fun at everything, including politicians of all stripes. The most popular film in Madrid last winter was The Proposal, a sexually explicit tale of an amoral senorita who accidentally kills her lover out of erotic ardor. But Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris has yet to be shown, and a poet was recently fined $2,700 for reading in public a work by Garcia Lorca available in most bookstores.

Attitudes on sex and marriage are changing. New women's groups are agitating for the legalization of divorce (favored by six out of ten Spaniards) and for abolition of harsh old laws that punish adultery with fines and imprisonment—for women only.

The Catholic Church remains opposed to contraception and abortion, but a special commission will study the divorce issue. Although some bishops retain strong links with the Bunker and the church remembers its deep involvement with the Franco regime, priests and even nuns openly flaunt leftist sympathies. No action was taken against some 20 priests who ran as candidates in the election (three won), despite Vicente Cardinal Enrique y Tarancon's admonition that the church should stay above the political struggle. In any case, the church has a spiritual struggle on its hands—against "indifferentism." According to one recent poll, only 48% of adult Spaniards consider themselves practicing Catholics.

Many of the changes began well before Franco's death. The liberalization within the church, for example, started slowly after the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Other changes were triggered by the economic boom of the 1960s, which made Spain the world's ninth largest industrial power and spurred a major rural-population shift. Immigrants from the poor south and Galicia moved to Madrid, the industrial Basque provinces and Catalonia. In 1960 four out of 100 families owned a car; today 51 out of 100 do.

But growth had its negative impact, and in the unstable atmosphere of post-Franco politics, the Spanish economy has been left largely to its own long-deteriorating devices. "We have been living a drunken fiesta of reform and democracy, and the economy has been forgotten," complains one leading businessman. "When the election is finally over we are going to wake up with a monumental hangover."

The morning-after view is sobering.

Inflation is raging at an annual rate of about 30%. Nearly 8% of the nation's work force is unemployed. A deep and chronic balance of payments deficit —caused largely by oil-price hikes and sluggish exports—threatens the long-term solvency of a nation vitally dependent on foreign trade. To make up for a record $4.3 billion budget deficit last year, the government had to draw on reserves (now down to $4.5 billion from a peak of $6.7 billion in 1973) and borrow heavily abroad.