SPAIN: THE NEW PARTY SYSTEM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00857R000200010002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2007
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: November 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of On l entlal
Intelligence
Spain: The New
Party System
Confidential
EUR 82-10129
November 1982
311
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Directorate of Confidential
Intelligence
Spain: The New
Party System
This paper was prepared byl he
Office of European Analysis. Comments and queries are
welcome and may be ad d to the Chief Iberia-
Aegean Branch, EURAI
This paper has been coordinated with the Directorate
of Operations and with the National Intelligence
Council.
Confidential
EUR 82-10129
November 1982
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Confidential
Spain: The N
Party System
Key Judgments Besides giving Spain its first Socialist government since the Civil War, the
Information available October 1982 election has radically transformed the nation's party system.
as of 18 November 1982 The old structure was characterized by two dominant parties-the Cen-
was u.;ed in this report.
trists and the Socialists-that laid claim to the center and the center-left of
the political spectrum respectively, flanked by the small rightist Popular
Alliance and the somewhat larger Communist party. The election virtually
eliminated the Centrists and the Communists as serious political forces,
creating a bipolar system dominated by the Socialists on the center-left and
the Popular Alliance on the center-right. Basque and Catalan regional
parties maintained their strength, but other minor and regional groupings
did poorly.
We believe that the election outcome has enhanced the prospects for long-
term political stability. The reduction of the abstention rate from nearly 40
to barely 20 percent indicates that Spaniards support democracy and have
little nostalgia for their authoritarian past. Spanish voters backed parties of
the moderate right and left that were disciplined and prepared to govern,
eschewing the extremes and punishing the rampant infighting of Centrists
and Communists alike.
In our view, the longevity of the new party structure will depend largely on
the political maturity of the victorious parties. The Socialists face the
greatest challenge, having to satisfy both their new centrist supporters and
their traditonal leftist constituency. If the party's program fails to arrest
the decline in Spain's economy, radicals may push for measures that would
antagonize rightist power centers and the military. Nevertheless, we
believe that the Socialists' discipline and pragmatism will enable them to
steer a moderate course in the near future. If the Popular Alliance
conducts itself as a responsible opposition party and purges its remaining
antidemocratic elements, it has the potential to give Spain a democratic
alternative on the right. This would mark the end of the transition to
democracy and the appearance in Spain of a party system similar to those
of the most stable West European states.
Confidential
EUR 82-10129
November 1982
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Figure 1
Spain: Regional Distribution of Socialist Vote
Canary Islands ,ry
L. Polme e/
~ ienerne ~c.oe
coeo.,o
We de Albs,do
ISpI
Mediterranean
Sea
gC(sp) a ALGERIA
Balearic
Sea
Bal earic
151andis
Over 60
50-60
40-50
30-40
Under 30
Region boundary
0 50 100 Kilometers
0 50 00 Miles
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Spain: The N
Party Syste
In addition to giving Spain its first Socialist govern-
ment in over 40 years, the elections in October
radically transformed the nation's party system. The
first legislative elections of the post-Franco era-1977
and 1979-had produced almost identical victories for
the center, leading many observers to conclude that
the Spanish party system had "jelled" early and
would be susceptible to only cosmetic modifications.
The 1977-79 pattern was characterized by two domi-
nant parties, the Union of the Democratic Center
(UCD) and the Socialists (PSOE), laying claim respec-
tively to the center and center-left, flanked on the
right by the small Popular Alliance (AP) and on the
left by the somewhat more consequential Communist
Party (PCE). Minor and regional parties completed a
system that was essentially centrist and appeared to
restrict both unabashed rightists and the Marxist left
from gaining power
Little of this structure remains after last month's
voting. The AP is now the chief parliamentary opposi-
tion, the center and the Communists have been
eliminated as serious actors, and the PSOE, with an
absolute majority in both the Chamber of Deputies
and the Senate, dominates the political scene. How
long is this new party system likely to endure? Does it
strengthen or weaken Spain's democratic institutions?
And will it enhance or diminish Spain's political
stability over the near and medium term?
The Left: Socialist Hegemony
The chief element of continuity in the pre- and post-
electoral political landscape is the PSOE's dominance
on the center-left. The Socialists increased their share
of the electorate from 30.5 percent in 1979 to over 46
percent this year. Roughly 1 million former Commu-
nist supporters and nearly 2 million ex-UCD voters
backed the Socialists in 1982. Equally impressive was
the breadth of Socialist support: the party placed first
or a close second in every region of Spain except
Galicia, a traditional redoubt of the right and of the
AP in particular. Even in Catalonia and the Basque
Country-where opposition to Socialist-backed legis-
lation curbing regional autonomy is strong-the So-
cialists vastly improved their position over 1979. The
PSOE also did well in rural north-central Spain, a
generally conservative area whose overrepresentation
in r)arliamep I t had previously benefited the Centrists.
We believe that the Socialist victory vindicated party
leader Felipe Gonzalez's moderate platform.
Throughout the campaign, Gonzalez emphasized that
a ballot cast for the PSOE was a vote for democracy
and the constitution-not for socialism. He correctly
perceived that most socialist growth would come from
past abstainers and supporters of the UCD. By shift-
ing his party to the right, Gonzalez in our view
mobilized a segment of the electorate that was anx-
ious for moderate change and fresh faces but had
been suspicious of the PSOE's past radicalism and
Marxist rhetoric. The PSOE, in fact, so effectively
filled the center-left of the political spectrum that
several social democratic "hinge" parties, designed to
govern oalition with the Socialists, were stillborn.'
This gain alone probably would have assured the
Socialists an electoral plurality. The party's landslide
victory and absolute parliamentary majority was in
our view made possible by the 1 million Communist
votes that the PSOE picked up almost by default. The
Socialists did nothing to court these votes-their
The first of these was the Party of Democratic Action of former
Francoist functionary and ex-UCD minister Francisco Fernandez
Ordonez. Several of this group's leaders were incorporated into the
PSOE's electoral lists, but the party itself was all but ignored
during the campaign and does not have a bright future. Even
smaller and less significant was the Democratic Liberal Party of
Antonio Garrigues, which did not contest the elections. Former
Prime Minister Suarez's party, which won under 3 percent of the
vote, was the most striking example of the futility of trying to
create a viable center-left option independent of the Socialists.
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Distribution of Popular Vote and Deputies in the Lower House
Popular Alliance a
5.70
9
25.35
106
Union of the Democratic Center
34.96
168
7.26
12
Social Democratic Center (Suarez) b
2.89
2
Communists
3.87
4
Convergencia i Unio (Catalan moderates)
2.70
8
3.73
12
Basque Nationalist Party (Basque moderates)
1.54
7
1.91
8
Herri Batasuna (Basque leftist extremists)
.96
3
.97
2
Euskadiko Ezkerra (Basque leftists)
.48
1
.47
1
Andalusian Socialist Party
1.80
5
.33
Minor and regional c
10.55
5
7.15
a In 1979 this party ran as the democratic coalition; in 1982 it ran in
coalition with the Popular Democratic Party and two small regional
parties.
b This faction contested only the 1982 election.
This includes null and blank ballots.
efforts were primarily aimed at assuaging the right-
but the party profited immensely from the Commu-
nists' self-destruction. The PCE dropped from 10.8 to
3.8 percent of the popular vote and lost all but four of
its 23 deputies. The debacle was due to the internal
struggles, expulsions, and splits that have wracked the
party over the past two years. We believe that,
assailed by both pro-Soviet hardliners and "renova-
tors" demanding internal party democracy, the PCE
came to appear as little more than an embattled core
of unconditional party loyalists and unprincipled op-
portunists. Not surprisingly, Communist voters de-
fected en masse, preferring to cast a "useful vote" for
the party on the left that appeared strong and united
and had a chance to govern.II
Recognizing the magnitude of the defeat, Santiago
Carrillo has resigned as PCE secretary general. The
role of his replacement, Gerardo Iglesias, in purging
the party in Asturias, however, makes it clear that he
is a faithful Carrillo supporter and representative of
the discredited party apparat; we think it unlikely that
Iglesias will initiate the reforms demanded by Carril-
lo's opponents. The "renovators" have already an-
nounced their intention of calling for an early party
congress, and more bloodletting appears inevitable.
We believe that only a renovated, fully Eurocommu-
nist party would have a fair chance of recuperating
some of its lost electorate; even in that case it would
have little chance of regaining all the ground it has
lost.
Perhaps more dangerous for the political system
would be a permanently crippled Communist party
incapable of mustering more than 4 to 5 percent of the
vote. In such circumstances many Communist mili-
tants and voters might decide to abandon the party
permanently for the Socialists, thus reinforcing the
PSOE's radical wing. This would have a much greater
destabilizing impact on the political system than if
radical leftist sentiment were contained within a
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Confidential
r
somewhat more healthy-but politically isolated-
Communist party. We believe that for the time being,
however, the Communist collapse has enhanced
Spain's governability by helping to give it a one-party
majority government with virtually no competition on
the left
The Center: End of the Transition
The most dramatic aspect of the election was the
decimation of the center. No governing party in post-
1945 Europe has been so harshly castigated by the
voters as the UCD: the centrists tumbled from 35 to
7.3 percent of the popular vote and returned only 12
of 168 deputies. As with the Communists, it is our
view that the electorate rejected the UCD because it
had become an ineffective and divided party, ham-
strung by personal rivalries and debilitating infight-
ing. Created by Adolfo Suarez in 1977 to represent an
already existing government in Spain's first post-
Franco election, the UCD flourished largely by dis-
tributing the fruits of power. For a brief period this
was sufficient to mask the party's lack of internal
cohesion or ideological clarity. Now stripped of power,
abandoned by its charismatic founder, and overshad-
owed as an opposition force by the Popular Alliance,
the UCD seems unlikely to survive in its current form.
Most of its reelected deputies had publicly favored a
pact with Manuel Fraga's AP, and we think some will
now be tempted to defect to the right. There has
already been press speculation about a possible re-
structuring and renaming of the party, but we suspect
that only radical surgery can save the UCD. At best
the party may evolve into a small liberal-centrist
force, not unlike the West German Free Democrats
but without their decisive role in the party system. At
worst-a we 19`~11 his is more probable-it will
disappear.
We see the center's demise as symbolizing the end of
the transition to democracy in Spain. Elsewhere in
Europe the UCD would have been classified as a
rightwing party. Only the peculiarity of Spanish
political culture, with its still-influential Francoist
authoritarian right, enabled the UCD to lay plausible
claim to the center. We believe that with the accept-
ance of liberal democracy by the Popular Alliance
and the isolation of the neo-Francoist nostalgics, a
bipolar party structure has come into being. The
raison d etre of the UCD no longer exists, since the
anti-Socialist vote is now articulated by an avowedly
rightist party that also is avowedly democratic. In our
view the party was a victim of its successful first
phase in power, when it shepherded Spain from
dictatorship to democracy: by exorcising the ghost of
Francoism from the political system, it dispelled the
equation of rightism with authoritarianism-and
freed a quarter of the electorate to vote for the
Popular Alliance.
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Figure 3. Leader of the opposition: Manuel Fragal
The Right: Hail the Phoenix
After his party's modest showing in 1977 and near
collapse two years later, Spanish pundits dismissed
Manuel Fraga as a leftover from the Franco regime,
destined to fade into insignificance as the transition to
democracy was completed. Now Fraga's AP-in tan-
dem with the small Popular Democratic Party-is the
official opposition and Prime Minister-designate
Gonzalez has proposed that Fraga receive a state
salary as opposition leader just one peseta lower than
his own. We believe that this remarkable comeback-
from 9 to 106 deputies-was due almost entirely to
Fraga's determination and firm leadership. Spanish
politics has always been plagued by "personalism," or
the clash of inflated individual egos. Only forceful
personalities such as Fraga and Gonzalez have been
able to supply the needed respect and discipline to
control party infighting and personal rivalries
But strong leadership alone-as the case of Santiago
Carrillo demonstrated-is not sufficient to assure
success. In our view, Fraga's authoritarian style has
been his greatest asset but also his chief liability, since
it reinforced suspicion that his allegience to democra-
cy was only skin deep. Before the latest election,
Spanish political observers had maintained that the
AP leader's volatility and Francoist past would pre-
vent him from winning more than 15 to 20 percent of
the vote. Fraga surpassed that easily, and if UCD
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Confidential
deputies defect to the AP in any numbers, its parlia-
mentary strength will roughly equal that of the PSOE
when that party was in opposition. The adherence of
former UCD deputies and members would in our view
reinforce Fraga's contention that he represents a
modern, democratic, center-right alternative to the
Socialists, not the authoritarian rightist fringe. Dubi-
ously democratic sectors are still present in the AP,
but harvesting over 2 million ex-Centrist votes-far
outweighing the input of the unreconstructed right-
gives Fraga a powerful tool with which to fulfill his
publicly stated goal of converting the Alliance into a
ivalent of the British Conservative Party.
Minor and Regional Parties
We believe that the decline registered by most minor
and regional parties in the 1982 election augurs
increased political stability. The dozen or so Marxist-
Leninist miniparties to the left of the PCE and the
several fascist groupings to the right of the AP
together garnered under 3 percent of the vote. The
only regional parties outside of the Basque provinces
and Catalonia represented in the new parliament ran
in coalition with the AP.2 Elsewhere regional parties
of all political hues were obliterated. The Socialist
Party of Andalusia, for example, which in 1979 polled
over 325,000 votes and elected five deputies, has been
reduced to extraparliamentary status. We think this
development dissipates one of the gravest potential
dangers to Spanish democracy: that regional devolu-
tion would spur the proliferation of regional parties
and seriously weaken national political associations.
We believe that strong national parties are needed to
hold in check the centrifugal forces unleashed by the
regional autonomy process. Voters will probably be
more generous to regional parties in local and regional
contests, but their threat to the national art s stem
has in our view been effectively halted.
' The Aragonese Regionalist Party and the Uni n of the Navarrese
People each elected one deputy in this fashion
' There is indirect evidence that the voters at least subconsciously
recognize the need for strong national parties by adjusting their
vote in regional versus national elections. When issues are restricted
to the regional level, Spaniards have been kinder to regional parties.
The moderate Basque and Catalan regionalists handily beat the
Socialists in recent regional elections, but their showing this year-
while an improvement over their results in the last national
elections-was much poorer. Many voters apparently want to be
ruled at home regional arty but represented in Madrid by a
national force
Only in the Basque country and Catalonia-where
regional consciousness is deeply rooted-have region-
al parties maintained their vitality. The moderate
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) increased its abso-
lute vote, but was nearly overtaken by the Socialists
due to a record turnout of non-Basque workers. In
Catalonia the centrist Convergence and Union coali-
tion improved both its absolute and its relative stand-
ing compared to 1979 but was swamped by the PSOE,
which attracted most of the constituents of the once-
powerful Catalan branch of the Communist Party.
We think that, by splitting their support among
regional and national parties, the Basques and Cata-
lans have assured that their special interests will be
defended in Madrid without divorcing the regions
from the national party system. In our view another
factor for stability is the mediocre showing of the
radical leftist Basque groups close to the various
factions of the ETA terrorist organization, which
confirms the hegemony of the moderate PNV among
Basque regional parties.
Outlook
Both the winners and the losers of last month's
election promptly announced that the outcome was a
triumph for democracy. We view this as not just self-
congratulatory rhetoric: the disturbing trend towards
abstention was decisively reversed and electoral par-
ticipation reached nearly 80 percent-greater even
than for the first post-Franco elections five years ago.
In addition, Spain has achieved peaceful rotation
between the right and the left-an achievement that
still eludes Italy's far more mature democracy. Span-
ish voters backed parties of the moderate right and
left that were disciplined and prepared to govern,
eschewing the extremes and punishing the rampant
infighting of Centrists and Communists alike. Al-
though some aspects of the balloting are likely to
increase short-term tensions, we think that Spanish 25
democracy, by changing its leaders without provoking
an extraconstitutional military response, has at last
come of age
It is less certain, however, that the PSOE and the AP, 25
to quote one of Fraga's lieutenants, "will rotate in
power until the year 2000." We believe that the
longevity of the new party structure will depend
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Figure 4
Abstention Rates in Referenda, Legislative
and Municipal Elections, 1976-82
Political reform (1976)
referendum
Legislative election (1977) 1
Constitutional (1978) r-
Legislative election (1979) 1
22.8
Municipal election (1979) i
Legislative election (1982) 21.31
32.81
31
40.0
largely on the political maturity of the AP and the
PSOE. The Socialists in particular face a difficult
challenge. The party must hold to its moderate course
to retain the allegiance of its new supporters-many
of whom are centrists-and avoid alienating rightist
power centers and the military. At the same time, it
must provide enough reform to satisfy its traditional
constituency. The biggest hurdle is likely to be the
economy: with both inflation and unemployment at 15
percent and rising, the PSOE will be hard pressed to
brake current trends, much less reverse them. If the
Socialist program fails to halt Spain's economic de-
cline, we believe that sectors of the party-along with
the trade unions and the Communists-may press for
radical measures that would push the party to the left
and resurrect rightist and milit r f r of "Marxist"
government and social disorder
In our view, Gonzalez's firm control of the party,
while on balance positive, will have to be partially
loosened in the future if moderate PSOE leaders are
to emerge from his shadow. As in all Spanish parties,
this may be accompanied by debilitating infighting.
Nevertheless, we believe that the PSOE's discipline,
ideological moderation, and history of pragmatism
give the party a good chance of holding together over
the next four years. If Gonzalez provides strong
leadership and if the PSOE demonstrates that the left
can govern Spain without dividing the country against
itsel,this one will be an immense accomplishment.
The AP faces an only slightly less formidable chal-
lenge in our view. Fraga has always been an unpre-
dictable politician, and although he exercised great
control during the campaign, his penchant for con-
frontation and verbal aggression remains intact. The
AP must resist the easy option of constantly invoking
the specter of Socialist extremism if it is to conduct a
responsible opposition to the government. But provid-
ed it absorbs the least compromised of former Cen-
trist leaders and purges itself of authoritarian ele-
ments, the Alliance has the potential to give Spain a
democratic alternative on the right. The choice be-
tween social democracy and conservative liberalism is
the norm in most of Europe, and its emergence in
Spain would be a final confirmation that Africa starts
at the Strait of Gibraltar-not at the Pyrenees
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