40 years of democracy in Spain
In June 1977 Spain held its first free elections since before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, putting the final nail in the coffin of the Franco dictatorship. The country media looks back without any nostalgia.
Then vision, now standstill
Spain's political landscape is no longer shaped by grand visions as it was in 1977, El Confidencial comments:
“Back then the goal was to change the dark reality of late Francoism, whereas today everything, or practically everything, revolves around elections. … This also explains the political blockade this country is experiencing. After almost a year of paralysis we finally have a government, but one that hardly governs beyond negotiating the budgets for 2017, paying cheques amounting to millions to influential minorities and passing minor laws and decrees that make little difference to the fundamental nature of the problems. And political blockades, as we all know, inevitably lead to immobility, as the king quite rightly pointed out yesterday.”
An exemplary constitution
La Razón also praises the work of the politicians who reformed Spain after its first free elections:
“The constitution of 1978 provided a useful and progressive legal framework that responded to the historical exigencies of the time. For the first time it allowed the country to have a common political project, a 'great project of national reconciliation, with the great national purpose of uniting the two Spains', as the king put it. Moreover it paved the way for the construction of a more advanced society and the design of a new territorial map, a perfect example of Spain's decentralisation.”