Admiral-General Luis Carrero Blanco was a Spanish Navy officer and politician. A long-time confidant and right-hand man of dictator Francisco Franco, Carrero served as Spain's Premier. Upon graduating from the naval academy Carrero Blanco participated in the Rif War, and later the Spanish Civil War, in which he supported the Rebel faction. He became one of the most prominent figures in the Francoist dictatorship's power structure and held throughout his career a number of high-ranking offices such as those of Undersecretary of the Presidency from 1941 to 1967 and Franco's deputy from 1967 to 1973. He also was the main drafter behind the 1947 Law of Succession to the Headship of the State. Franco handpicked him as his successor in the role of head of government, with Carrero thereby taking office in June 1973.
Adolfo Suárez González, 1st Duke of Suárez was a Spanish lawyer and politician. Suárez was Spain's first democratically elected prime minister since the Second Spanish Republic and a key figure in the country's transition to democracy after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
On 20 December 1973, Luis Carrero Blanco, the Prime Minister of Spain, was assassinated when a cache of explosives in a tunnel set up by the Basque separatist group ETA was detonated. The assassination, also known by its code name Operación Ogro, is considered to have been the biggest attack against the Francoist State since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and had far-reaching consequences within the politics of Spain.
Leopoldo Ramón Pedro Calvo-Sotelo y Bustelo, 1st Marquess of Ría de Ribadeo, usually known as Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, was Prime Minister of Spain between 1981 and 1982.
Carlos Arias Navarro, 1st Marquess of Arias Navarro was the prime Minister of Spain during the final years of the Francoist dictatorship and the beginning of the Spanish transition to democracy.
The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as la Transición or la Transición española, is a period of modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist dictatorship to the consolidation of a parliamentary system, in the form of constitutional monarchy under Juan Carlos I.
In the history of contemporary Spain, the death of caudillo Francisco Franco on 20 November 1975 marked the beginning of the Spanish transition to democracy, the establishment of the parliamentary monarchy and the subsequent accession of King Juan Carlos I to the throne. In 1978, the current Spanish Constitution of 1978 was signed and the status of Spain's autonomous entities (autonomías) was defined.
The 1977 Spanish general election was held on Wednesday, 15 June 1977, to elect the Spanish Cortes of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as all 207 seats in the Senate.
The Council of the Realm was a corporate organ of Francoist Spain, created by the Law of Succession to the Headship of the State of 1947. Within the institutional complex created to hierarchize the regime of Francisco Franco, was the high council that advised the Head of State in the decision making of its exclusive competence. An antecedent of the Council of the Realm is the institution of the same name that appears in the Draft Constitution of 1929 of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera.
The búnker was the extreme right-wing faction that manifested itself in Spain during the end of the Franco regime and the Spanish transition to democracy. It was maintained by figures of the regime who were radically opposed to introducing any changes to it, and who after Franco's death absolutely rejected reforms, instead defending the continuity of the Movimiento Nacional. Its three main representatives were the neo-Francoists José Antonio Girón de Velasco, Raimundo Fernández-Cuesta, and Blas Piñar. The most important newspaper of the búnker was El Alcázar, which refers to the Siege of the Alcázar, where nationalist forces held the Alcázar of Toledo against an overwhelmingly larger Spanish Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. The term refers to the extreme resistance that Hitler maintained until his last moments in the Führerbunker. According to the historian José Luis Rodríguez Jiménez,
[T]he concept of "bunker" refers to a group of influential people in entrenched positions and established in the institutions of the Francoist State. That is to say, it is a political, economic and ecclesiastical conglomerate, sometimes not very well synchronized. Its most solid pillars were in the National Council [of the Movement], the Cortes [Españoles], the Council of the Realm and the Syndical Organization, as well as in the press and in the army officer corps. Therefore, the term "bunker" refers, much more than to an ideology or a certain program, to a way of defending political and economic interests, as well as a mentality linked to the scheme of values imposed by the victors in the civil war.
Duke of Fernández-Miranda, is a title for Spanish nobility that is accompanied by the additional honorific dignity of Grandee of Spain. It was granted by Juan Carlos I on 31 May 1977 to Torcuato Fernández-Miranda y Hevia, who played an important role in the Spanish transition to democracy. His political education of then Prince Juan Carlos during the dictatorship of Francoist Spain, and his statesmanship creating transitional laws and a constitution, and in facilitating the referendum and democratic elections after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, were instrumental in Spain's return to democracy.
Fernando de Santiago y Díaz de Mendívil was a conservative politician who served as deputy prime minister of Spain and briefly as acting prime minister during the Spanish transition to democracy in the late 1970s. He had earlier been a general in the Spanish Civil War and under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
A constitutional referendum was held in Spain on Wednesday, 6 December 1978, to gauge support for either the ratification or repealing of the Spanish Constitution which had been approved by the Cortes Generales on 31 October 1978. The question asked was "Do you approve of the Constitution Bill?". The referendum resulted in 92% of valid votes in support of the bill on a turnout of 67%.
A referendum on political reform was held in Spain on Wednesday, 15 December 1976, to gauge support for either the ratification or repealing of the Political Reform Act which had been approved by the Cortes Españolas on 18 November 1976. The question asked was "Do you approve of the Political Reform Bill?". The referendum resulted in 97.4% of valid votes in support of the bill on a turnout of 77.7%.
Puedo prometer y prometo is a classic catchphrase said by Spanish politician Adolfo Suárez, first said in the first post-Franco general elections in Spain in 1977.
The Political Reform Act was the Spanish law that re-established democracy and allowed the elimination of the governmental structures of the Franco dictatorship through a legal process. It is one of the key events in the Spanish Transition.
Sociological Francoism is an expression used in Spain which attests to the social characteristics typical of Francoism that survived in Spanish society after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 and continue to the present day.
The government of Luis Carrero Blanco was formed on 12 June 1973, following his appointment and swearing-in as Prime Minister of Spain on 9 June by Head of State Francisco Franco, who for the first time since 1938 had chosen to detach the figure of the head of government from that he held of head of state. It succeeded the eighth Franco government and was the Government of Spain from 12 June to 31 December 1973, a total of 202 days, or 6 months and 19 days.
Adolfo Suárez, el presidente is a Spanish biopic television movie aired as two-part miniseries directed by Sergio Cabrera. It originally aired on Antena 3 from 27 January to 3 February 2010. It deals about the life of prime minister Adolfo Suárez, who is portrayed by Ginés García Millán.
