Finally a Real Campaign

It was a spectacle the likes of which most Spaniards had never seen. Only hours after the official opening of the country's first election campaign in 41 years, half a million political posters bloomed along the narrow streets and broad thoroughfares of Madrid. For the first time ever, politicians of all stripes, including the long-outlawed Communists, made campaign appearances last week over the air waves of the state-run television network, which had been created as an instrument of the Franco dictatorship. Across the country, nearly 6,000 candidates, vying for 557 parliamentary seats in the June 15 national election, took to the hustings to test the political preferences of people who for almost two generations had been taught not to choose but to obey.

Hoping to avoid the poster and graffiti pollution that plagued neighboring Portugal after the 1974 revolution, government officials erected more than 900 billboards throughout the capital with such mottos as "Play clean, don't paint the city." The government itself put up thousands of posters exhorting voters to "Think, analyze and choose" and "Democracy is among other things the acceptance of political pluralism."

Though extremists were attempting to disrupt the election--in Barcelona two civil guards were killed and a Madrid power station was bombed--campaign violence was not widespread. On the whole, the 22 million Spaniards who are eligible to vote on June 15 seemed surprisingly calm. Many appeared more bewildered than enthusiastic about the rituals of democracy --early polls showed 25% of the voters undecided. That was not all bad. Given the passions of the past and the dangers of polarization, one foreign diplomat observed, "Spain probably does not need an emotional campaign."

Out of an astonishing mix of 160 legal parties, six major blocs and a handful of minor ones are contesting the election. The leading contenders:

>The Democratic Center Union (U.C.D.), a center-right coalition of 15 groups, including Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and independents, is headed by Premier Adolfo Suarez, 44, who took over the faltering alliance last month and installed a number of his own loyalists as candidates. Some liberals quit in protest, and a number of former officials in the Franco regime came aboard. Because of this--and because of Suarez's own background as head of Franco's National Movement Party --critics charge that the coalition is "renovated Franquismo." The charge is not altogether fair however; the coalition includes some vigorous opponents of the old guard as well.

Should the Democratic Center win, Suarez says its top priorities will be 1) a new constitution approved by all the parties, 2) economic and tax reforms,3) measures for regional autonomy and4) administrative reforms, such as decentralization and a streamlined bureaucracy. The U.C.D. favors the present mixed economy (with a sizable public sector), extension of social security benefits to all, and free trade unions.

> The Socialist Workers Party (P.S.O.E.), the largest party in Spain when the Civil War began in 1936, is well connected to but stands to the left of Europe's Social Democratic parties. Socialist Leader Felipe Gonzalez, 34, a charismatic labor lawyer from Seville, is the country's second most popular politician, after Suarez. Dressed in open-necked shirt and corduroy jacket, Gonzalez is waging a loose, energetic American-style campaign. His chief target is the Democratic Center, which he charges is working with the right in an effort to defeat the left. The party endorses a mixed economy but "progressive" nationalization (no specific targets), banking and insurance reforms, and trade unionism.

> The Communist Party, led by Santiago Carrillo, 62, is playing a moderate and responsible role in the election, in keeping with Carrillo's image as a democratic Eurocommunist. The party supports entry into the Common Market (urged by both the Democratic Center and the Socialists), advocates a cautious approach to nationalization of basic industry, and even tolerates U.S. bases in Spain, so long as Russia maintains troops in Warsaw Pact nations.

>The Popular Alliance is a neo Franco organization composed of conservatives, old Franquistas, members of the secretive Opus Dei Roman Catholic lay movement and is backed by some big money. Its tough, ambitious leader, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, 55, who resigned as Interior Minister last year when he was passed over in favor of Suarez, condemns the Premier's legalization of the Communists as a "grave political error and a juridical farce." The party's basic pitch: keep the best of Franco and hold reforms to a minimum.

With only a week remaining before the election, the campaign seemed to be shaping up into a popularity contest between two men who could pass as matinee idols: Suarez and Gonzalez. That was not too difficult to understand, since the major parties agree on the post-election priorities of a new constitution and urgent economic measures. One early poll gave the U.C.D. 20% of the vote, the Socialists 13%; another had them neck and neck. Fighting it out for third place were the Communists and the Popular Alliance, each with around 6%.

Suarez so far has not campaigned, in order not to involve the government directly in the election. But his alignment with the Democratic Center (and his slogan, "The Safe Road to Democracy") is proclaimed in countless posters. As the campaign headed into its final week, his coalition looked like the odds-on favorite to win--though probably short of a parliamentary majority.

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