Spanish Democratic Board and the Transition to Democracy

Spanish Democratic Board and Transition to Democracy

Its social and political character was developed by the Democratic Board, which was made up of leftists and created by the PCE. It was directed to the people and to the government, addressing Arias Navarro and proposing a democracy to ensure the liberties of the Spanish people during the political transition. Its goal was democracy and freedoms.

Nature of the Regime and Early Opposition

It created an organic democracy close to pseudo-democratic powers where the family, town and the union elected the representatives. It was pseudo-democratic because Franco's powers remained untouchable. Several pro-democracy Spanish representatives criticized the Franco regime in the Contubernio de Múnich. On their return they suffered reprisals. In the 1960s the law establishing the legal regime, the press law and the LOE were enacted. The Church began to change its attitude toward the regime. The Law of Succession was also proclaimed. The regime intended to join the EEC but could not. The opposition, on the other hand, began to organize protests; union democracy was born and ETA emerged. In 1974 the government changed under Arias Navarro and technocrats. There were problems of public order and the government tightened measures.

Manifesto Written in Paris

As Franco's illness worsened, the Democratic Board established itself in Paris where it wrote this manifesto with the following ideas:

• A provisional government of transition between dictatorship and democracy.
• Release of those arrested on ideological grounds.
• Support for the diversity of ideas and equal treatment among them.
• Respect for the will of citizens by establishing freedom of association, with freedom of parties and unions; previously there had been only one.
• Recognition by the government of the right to free expression and the publication of opinions.
• Requests that information conveyed by the media be truthful.
• Calls for decentralization of power.
• That the army always be subordinated to political (civil) authority.
• Review of the concordat to separate Church and State.
• Establishment of a new democratic regime seeking universal suffrage and Spain's accession to the EEC.