King Juan Carlos has been up to his tricks again. He somehow manoeuvred the current and three former prime ministers into posing with him after the ceremony on Monday during which he bestowed the Collar of the Most Illustrious Order of the Golden Fleece on French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
It's a photo for the nation's historical archives. There is no love lost between former PM Felipe Gonzalez and current PM Mariano Rajoy but the real miracle took place on the other side of the King – former PMs Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and José María Aznar literally can't stand the sight of each other, yet there they are, smiling sweetly for the camera. Gonzalez hates Aznar just as passionately and Aznar reciprocates the feeling. To his credit, Rajoy, who doesn't particularly like either Zapatero or Gonzalez, seems to be a man incapable of deep feelings of hatred for his fellow men, although he doesn't suffer fools gladly. The King must still be having a good chuckle about that one.
The change in approach is at its most palpable when we look at the current deputy PM, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria – called simply Soraya hereinafter – and Zapatero's first deputy PM, María Teresa Fernandez de la Vega – called De la Vega hereinafter. The latter was stick thin, very into colour coordination and spiky hairstyles and so wrinkled at 52, her age when she was appointed, that she’s either a very heavy smoker or too fond of sunbathing. Soraya is small and round, with a skin many a 20-year-old can envy, quite sober in her dress but with an unruly mane of hair. De la Vega seemed to find it hard to smile – Soraya grins and laughs quite unselfconsciously. But the biggest difference is that De la Vega always seemed uncomfortable when addressing the press, speaking very woodenly as if from a script she appeared to have memorized beforehand and obviously dying to be somewhere else. Soraya seems to love her job as spokeswoman – some would say front woman for Rajoy. She handles the press very politely but firmly, welcoming their questions, and speaks her lines spontaneously and fluently. I enjoy watching her perform, whereas I used to die of embarrassment when De la Vega crossed my TV screen.
Rajoy may have inherited a very bad economic situation from Zapatero – the worst PM since the country's return to democracy for some, the victim of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s for others – but what state did his predecessors leave the country in?
Adolfo Suarez (1977-1981) inherited a host of political and social problems and an energy crisis from the Franco regime. He had to cope with a galloping inflation of 43 per cent while trying to raise a per capita income which was 20 per cent below the European average. Unemployment stood at 13.5 per cent – a paltry 1.7 million in comparison with today's – and to cap it all, the Basque terrorist group ETA killed 210 people between 1979 and 1981. The military felt he wasn't doing enough to defeat the group, which forced him to resign in January 1981 to avoid a coup. Some 200 Guardia Civil invaded Parliament on February 23rd, the day his successor was being elected. Even so, he will be remembered for the many reforms he carried out in one short year after the King appointed him PM in July 1976.
Calvo Sotelo, who took over from Suarez, hardly had time to make a dent in the country's problems before the 1982 general election. Inflation continued to rise, as did unemployment, which drove the country into a recession.
That was what Felipe Gonzalez inherited when he became the country's first Socialist PM since the Civil War. He carried out many social reforms and took Spain into Nato and the EU but left an unemployment rate of 20 per cent (3.5 million), a bankrupt Social Security and a huge public deficit and debt for José María Aznar to deal with. In his first four years, Aznar reduced unemployment to 13.6 per cent, which fell to 11.5 per cent in his second administration. That was when the fruits of his good accountancy began to be felt and Zapatero inherited a healthy economy, which he squandered by concentrating on progressive social reforms, leaving the economy to take care of itself.
Written by Muriel Pilkington, The local voice
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