The last major political survivor from the Franco dictatorship in Spain, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, has died aged 89.
Mr Fraga straddled Spain’s historic transition from dictatorship to democracy, serving in government both during and after the rule of General Francisco Franco and helping shape the modern Spanish right.
He was one of the fathers of the Constitution that sealed the transition in 1977, and a founding member of the conservative Popular Party which returned to power in November under Spain’s new Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy.
Rising through various posts under Franco, he served in the 1960s as Minister for Information – the chief censor and the bane of journalists – and for tourism, which he helped make Spain’s biggest industry at the time.
He was the last Franco-era politician to hold major office, remaining president of his native Galicia region, a conservative stronghold, for 16 years before losing an election there in 2005.
Commenting on the prospect of defeat ahead of that vote in 2005, he told right-leaning daily El Mundo: “I am used to working like a negro ... I will be as bored as a dead rat.”
Despite that big setback for the right, he continued in politics as a senator for Galicia up until September 2011, when he retired because of his declining health.
Mr Fraga was born on November 23, 1922, in Villalba, Galicia – also the home region of Franco and the Popular Party’s current leader Mr Rajoy, who became Prime Minister in December 2011.
A Roman Catholic father of five, now widowed, Mr Fraga offended some with his brusque style and comments about women.
“Undecided voters don’t say what they are thinking. It’s like when you ask a woman how many men she is sleeping with, she never gives a clear answer,” he said during one regional election campaign.
He apologised later.
Mr Fraga helped found what became today’s governing Popular Party and mentored José Maria Aznar, who took over from him as party leader and became conservative Prime Minister from 1996 to 2004. He had named Mr Aznar’s father as head of the national radio in 1962.
In 1966, Mr Fraga grabbed attention by bathing in the Mediterranean along with the then US ambassador, in a propaganda stunt to reassure the public over nuclear pollution after unexploded US atom bombs landed accidentally nearby.
Information Minister from 1962 to 1969, he also served as Spain’s Ambassador to London from 1973 until Franco’s death in 1975, and as interior minister immediately after it.
He also later became a member of the European Parliament.
Under the General’s dictatorship
Francisco Franco (1892-1975)• Spain was under the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco between 1936 and 1975.
• The regime was formed on October 1, 1936 by Franco and the National Defence Committee (a faction of the Spanish army rebelling against the Republic).
• After Franco’s victory in 1939, the FET y de las JONS (formed in 1937 by the FE de las JONS, the Carlists, and several conservative groups) was declared the sole legal party in Spain.
• As head of state Franco used the title Caudillo de Espana, por la gracia de Dios, meaning Leader of Spain by the Grace of God.
• The consistent points in Francoism included above all authoritarianism, nationalism and anti-Freemasonry; some authors also quote integralism.
• Franco’s Spanish nationalism promoted a unitary national identity by repressing the country’s cultural diversity. Bullfighting and flamenco were promoted as national traditions while those traditions not considered “Spanish” were suppressed.
• Franco also used language politics in an attempt to establish national homogeneity.
• Catholicism was made the official religion of the Spanish state, which enforced Catholic social mores.
• Spain was declared a kingdom in 1947, but no monarch was designated. Franco reserved for himself the right to name the person to be king, and deliberately delayed the selection due to political considerations.
• Juan Carlos de Borbón was officially designated as Franco’s official successor in 1969.
• With the death of Franco on November 20, 1975, Juan Carlos became the King of Spain and immediately began the process of a transition to democracy.