Spain's post-Franco democracy is on the rocks

‘Fine weather in Malaga’ proclaimed the banner headline of a Spanish newspaper in 1974 – that was the day’s big story. There was nothing about the country’s social and economic problems or the Carnation Revolution bringing democracy to neighbouring Portugal. After almost four decades in charge, the dictator Francisco Franco had effectively depoliticised Spain. ‘A century and a half of parliamentary democracy,’ Franco said, ‘accompanied by the loss of immense territory, three civil wars, and the imminent danger of national disintegration, add up to a disastrous balance sheet, sufficient to discredit parliamentary systems in the eyes of the Spanish people.’

Yet once Franco died – fifty years today ­– a brief but remarkable period of consensus, compromise and reconciliation brought a rapid