In 1993, the general elections were in the autumn. In March of that year, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Carlos Solchagaasked to see the President of the Government. The message that the minister conveyed to Felipe González seemed worrying: The impact of the recession that Spain had suffered since the second quarter of 1992 (largely diluted by the feeling of euphoria induced by the Barcelona Olympic Games and the Universal Expo in Seville), was going to manifest itself in all crudeness after the summer. Perhaps it was advisable to think about an early election if we wanted to have any chance of victory.
Solchaga was not wrong. At the end of November unemployment had skyrocketed, going from 16 to 24%, above 3.5 million unemployed, and the debt reached 68% of GDP (30 trillion pesetas, about 180,000 million euros; today is ten times more and 107% of GDP). González thought about it and a few weeks later, on April 12, he informed the King of his decision to dissolve the Cortes and call elections on June 6, five months before the scheduled date. At that moment, no one suspected, including Felipe, how disastrous the consequences of that decision were going to be.
González was convinced that, after eleven years in power, the time had come to withdraw, and with the advance he only intended to limit the damage of a foreseeable electoral setback. In fact, the surveys he conducted Alfonso Guerra In Ferraz they announced a sweet defeat at the hands of a Popular Party that became the leading political force, although it was far from the absolute majority. But the PSOE, against the odds, won the elections by a simple majority: 159 seats (-16) compared to 141 (+34) for the PP, and it was at that moment when everything began to fall apart.
In 1993 the page was turned on the supposed and false pout, but a plan to harass the Government without precedent in democracy was immediately launched, ordered by Aznar.
The first sample of what awaited us was the appearance of two prominent PP candidates in the middle of the election night, Javier Arenas and Alberto Ruiz Gallardon. Both questioned the cleanliness of the count and, without too many euphemisms, accused the Government of electoral fraud. To reinforce the pucherazo theory, Rodrigo Rato He later asked to be interviewed to question the validity of the electoral roll, thus rounding off a misinformation maneuver that led to the protest of thousands of party supporters in Génova 13 shouting “Hands up, this is a robbery!” Only after the King Juan Carlos will call José María Aznar The appropriate orders were issued to accept the defeat. Reluctantly.
The page was turned on the alleged manipulation of the result, but an unprecedented plan of harassment of the legitimate Government was immediately launched. Aznar announced that, from that moment on, no matter was going to be left out of political criticism. Nor was anti-terrorist fight. The leader of the PP thus broke the commitments acquired in the Pact of Ajuria Eneasigned in 1988 by all political parties with the exception of Herri Batasuna, and set the bar for censorship of the Executive at unrecognizable and reckless levels, signaling the start of the period of greatest tension in democracy.
Certainly, the Government and PSOE made it easy for them: flight of Roland; the GAL; the former Navarrese president, the socialist Gabriel Urralburuaccused of collecting million-dollar commissions for the concession of public works (he was later sentenced to 11 years in prison); the director of the BOE, Carmen Salanuevaprosecuted for fraud in the purchase of paper; the vice president of the Government, Narcis Serrathe Minister of Defense, Julian Garcia Vargas and the director of the CESID (today CNI), Emilio Alonso Manglanoforced to resign due to a scandal of illegal wiretapping of relevant personalities, including the King Juan Carlos. Etcetera, etcetera. And all this was happening while ETA continued killing: 42 murders between 1993 and 1995.
Felipe gives up trying Frankenstein 1
Faced with the accumulation of scandals, and with a government that, supported by the nationalists, did not govern, only resisted, Felipe González decided to put an end to the torture to which he was subjecting the country when three years had not yet passed since the previous meeting in the urns. On March 3, 1996, the PP won the elections (barely: 38.7% PP – 37.6% PSOE) and managed to govern with the same partners of González, the Catalan and Basque nationalists, who at that time had not yet taken the feet out of the pot.
However, there were those who, before Aznar settled in Moncloa, tried to convince the socialist leader to negotiate with Izquierda Unida and the nationalists to set up what would have been the Frankenstein 1 (mission impossible in the case of the UI of Julio Anguita due to the deep programmatic differences between socialists and communists and the manifest lack of chemistry between the Cordovan and the Sevillian). Despite this, the pressures became considerable, but Felipe always refused to try. He thought, and he told those who asked him this, that the time had come for another party to govern after a long decade of socialist power. Perhaps he failed to add, as he later admitted, that this move came three years late.
[En 1993-96 el número de escándalos era insoportable, y su nivel, en muchos casos, mayúsculo, pero el Estado de Derecho funcionaba. Hoy también, pero solo parcialmente, y contra viento y marea]
The V Legislature (1993-1996) has been the most sterile since the Constitution was approved. A time of personal tears, institutional delegitimization and setback as a nation. What we live today is not very different from that. Better said: the consequences are not very different, because from the point of view of democratic health this is much worse now. In those years, no political leader questioned the legitimacy of the courts to persecute the corrupt; the Constitutional Court, the General Council of the Judiciary or the State Attorney’s Office and Attorney General’s Office maintained a reasonable prestige; The partisan colonization of institutions, organizations and public companies was not, by any means, what occurs widely today. In short: the number of scandals was unbearable and their level, in many cases, huge, but the rule of law worked. Today, the cases of political corruption may not, as a whole and for the moment, reach the magnitude of those known in the 90s, but what is really serious, the real underlying problem, is the undisguised attempt to weaken the instruments that constitutionally they are in charge of prosecuting corruption.
That is the fundamental difference between past and present corruption. But not only that. There is more. González did not succumb to the temptation of weakening the State to remain in power, and no judge investigated his family environment. Pedro Sánchez’s declared intention is to resist, even at the cost of new tolls paid to the independence movement. This is in parallel with the consolidation of a plan to discredit the judges who investigate their relatives and the media that, almost daily, publish – and will continue to publish – new revelations.
Pedro Sánchez’s plan is to hold on. But the weaker your situation, the greater the conditions of blackmail will be. Endure at the expense of the State. At the cost of democracy.
#Felipe #González #Pedro #Sánchez
