Aznar's Legacy, Zapatero's Prospects
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Paddy Woodworth covered the March 11 Madrid bombings for the Irish Times, the BBC, the London Times, SkyNews, and Irish television and radio. He is the author of Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, the GAL and Spanish Democracy (Yale University Press, 2003) and “Using Terror against Terrorists,” in The Politics of Contemporary Spain, Sebastian Balfour, editor (forthcoming from Routledge). Spain Changes Course Aznar’s Legacy, Zapatero’s Prospects Paddy Woodworth Appearances are sometimes remarkably close of a statesman among equals, looking des- to reality. There is a well-known photograph tiny right between the eyes. This photo- of former Spanish prime minister José María graph was taken in March 2003 in the Aznar with President George W. Bush, in Azores. The Portuguese prime minister was which both men are smoking cigars and the host at the summit, but is the Spanish both have their feet up on the table at leader who is standing up front with the big which they are seated. Aznar’s usually stern boys, getting ready to go to war with Iraq, features have relaxed into a radiant glow of regardless of what his European and Arab consummation. He has fulfilled one of his neighbors, Spaniards in general, or even his supreme ambitions. He is on homefolks own party, the center-right Partido Popular terms with the leader of the world’s only (PP), thought about this venture. superpower. When the new Spanish prime minister, However, another and more concrete José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the center- ambition remained unfulfilled. The photo- left Socialist Party (PSOE), wanted to confirm graph was taken in Canada at the G-8 sum- his intention to take his country’s troops out mit in June 2002. But Aznar was not there of Iraq last April, he referred to this image. as of right, since Spain does not belong to Speaking at his investiture debate in the this elite group of states. He was there sim- Spanish parliament, he said: “We are going ply because Spain held the rotating presi- to take Spain out of that photograph in the dency of the European Union at the time. Azores.” Aznar’s meticulously constructed Aznar had made membership of the G-8 one reputation, and his prospects for interna- of his key foreign policy targets, and it must tional advancement, built up over 25 years have seemed within his grasp that June day. of very hard work, had been shattered in the Like so many of his other aspirations, how- three days following the March 11 bomb- ever, it was ultimately to elude him. ings in Madrid. “You and your war!” his There is another famous photograph of prime minister designate, Mariano Rajoy, Aznar with Bush, taken nine months later, now leader of the opposition, is said to have in which the Spanish premier looks much yelled at him, banging the table, on Satur- less at ease, and the usual humorless and day March 13, as a totally unexpected defeat painfully watchful expression has returned loomed in the next day’s elections.1 In to his face. The appearance is much more Spain, the occupation of Iraq was not just complex here, the reality harder to read. The one party’s war. It was one man’s war. And British prime minister, Tony Blair, is also now the country he had represented wanted present, but it is Bush who has his arm on to be cut out of an embarrassing photo- Aznar’s shoulder. It seems legitimate to graph, leaving gaping questions over a glimpse a touch of uncertainty in Aznar’s legacy that had seemed so secure only a fixed stare, as he tries to give the impression month earlier. Spain Changes Course 7 Personality and character are terms that for a party now led by Mariano Rajoy, every tend to be regarded with suspicion by seri- voter knew that the PP had been, and was ous political analysts. They prefer to think likely to remain, largely Aznar’s invention. that national and global affairs are molded by ideologies, economic forces, emerging A Democratic Fundamentalist? productive technologies, or even clashes of The forging of a successful democratic party civilizations rather than by individual hu- to represent the Spanish right, an essential man beings, and they are usually right. component for a stable democracy, may well However, there is no escaping the sig- be the former tax official’s greatest achieve- nificance of the character of José María Az- ment. The fact that he has led that party in nar, prime minister of Spain from 1996 un- a manner that has left Spain more deeply til last April. He has been the driving force divided than at any time since the Franco behind sweeping policy shifts, at home and dictatorship is his greatest failure. abroad. Verdicts from diverse sources attest In theory, at least, Spain’s transition to to the extraordinary weight that commenta- democracy after General Franco’s death was tors have given to what we might call the based on consensual politics.6 The “two “Aznar factor.” Spains,” so chillingly evoked by the poet “He deserves his place in Spain’s post- Antonio Machado at the outset of the Civil Franco pantheon. But greatness, which War, and which had divided Spaniards into was within his grasp, eluded him,” writes lethally hostile camps for the first three- Dan O’Brien, senior Europe editor at the quarters of the last century, seemed to Economist Intelligence Unit, who then con- have found interests, and ideas, in common cludes bluntly: “His character is to blame.”2 at last. O’Brien was writing before the Madrid Aznar, during his second administra- bombings, but after Aznar had fulfilled his tion at least, had no truck with consensus. promise to stand down as prime ministerial He believed that those who were not with candidate for the Partido Popular after two him were against him and came close to terms in office. saying that those who were against him “His personal authoritarianism has could not be democrats. In a book pub- worked well enough to cement the PP to- lished in February of this year, a veteran gether internally,” Soledad Gallego-Díaz Spanish journalist and commentator, Juan wrote in a valedictory piece in El País, “but Luis Cebrián, coined the phrase “democratic it has also been one of the most criticized fundamentalism” to describe this attitude. aspects of his character outside the party.”3 “This is a disease which the Spanish right Such were—and are—the emotions suffers in an extreme form,” he writes. He aroused by Aznar’s personality that the same adds that he considers that other world newspaper concluded an editorial last April leaders, and especially George W. Bush, by making the following recommendation are also infected. Aznar and Bush, he claims, to him on leaving office: “The question “exploit democracy as a function of their which Aznar should ask himself...is why he power, and they are inclined to under- has finished up being so detested by so mine democracy wherever and whenever many Spaniards.”4 they can.”7 He is, of course, also loved, or at least This is a severe charge. To see whether admired, by many others. More than nine it sticks in Aznar’s case, we need to under- and a half million people voted for the PP on stand something about his background, how March 14, only one and a quarter million his politics shifted over time, and, crucially, fewer than those who voted for the victori- the stark contrast between his first and sec- ous PSOE.5 While they had cast their ballots ond administrations. 8 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SUMMER 2004 We should not draw adverse conclusions first transitional governments had been from the fact that Aznar comes from a fami- dominated by the center-right Union of the ly background steeped in the traditionalist Democratic Center, or UCD, a coalition of religious and political values of the former former Francoist bureaucrats, Christian dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco. It was the Democrats, and Liberals. Ideological, re- aspiration of democrats in the transition pe- gional, and personal tensions tore it apart, riod to draw such people into the European and its vote collapsed in the 1982 elections. mainstream, not to isolate them and con- The opposition to González was now led by front them. He certainly should not be pil- the wily Manuel Fraga and his Coalición loried because, at the age of 16, he wrote Popular, an unabashedly right-wing group- a letter to a local newspaper calling for a ing also prone to factionalism. It was un- return to the “authentic” ideals of the Fa- likely that the CP would ever be acceptable lange, the radical Spanish fascist organiza- to any Spanish majority as the country pre- tion. After all, many of his future opponents pared for modernization, and EU and NATO were promoting the Thoughts of Mao at the membership, under the dynamic González time, and now enjoy unquestioned demo- administrations. A long period in the cratic credentials. wilderness awaited the Spanish right. It is more significant that, as a young Aznar undoubtedly deserves much, but adult in the crucial years of the late 1970s, not all, of the credit for remolding, indeed while Spain was holding its first post-Franco reinventing, the CP as the Partido Popular, elections and debating a democratic consti- an efficient, disciplined, and smart-looking tution, he wrote another series of articles party capable of winning the confidence of for publication that indicate respect for the the crucial “swing voters” of the center.