Former Franco aide will run for office . . . again

Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Francisco Franco’s propaganda chief in the 1960’s, has been nominated by his party to run for a fourth consecutive term as president of his native Galicia in northwest Spain where elections will be held in October.

Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar of the ruling Popular Party characterized Fraga, who turns 79 in November, as an example of what the country should aspire to become under its constitution.

“He is an example of national unity,” Aznar said in his keynote speech during the PP convention in Santiago de Compostela where Fraga was nominated on Feb. 3.

But Fraga, who was first elected Galicia’s president in 1990, is the only veteran of the old fascist dictatorship who still holds highly elected office in Spain.

After repeatedly failing to win election as prime minister after Franco’s death in 1975, Fraga himself founded the Popular Party in 1989. He is also credited with helping to write Spain’s Constitution in 1978.

Despite these modern-day democratic credentials, Fraga’s opponents have said he rules relatively poor Galicia, a region of 2.7 million inhabitants, like a feudal lord.

As Galicia's president, roughly equivalent to a United States governor, Fraga has traveled to nearly 30 nations to promote his province and is sometimes treated like a king.

His aides have said these trips, criticized by the opposition, have produced high growth rates in Galicia’s fishing, agricultural and industrial sectors.

But according to a New York Times report in December 1999, Fraga’s economic advisor, Jose Antonio Orza, admitted he did not have statistics to support the claim.

Fraga is not the longest-serving of Spain's 17 regional presidents. Jordi Pujol, president of Catalonia; Juan Carlos Rodríguez-Ybarra of Extremadura; and José Bono, president of New Castile, all have held the leadership of their regional governments longer than Fraga.

But Fraga is unusual because of his link to Franco, whom he served as minister of information and tourism and later as ambassador to Britain.

The Franco connection rendered him hopeless in four failed bids to become prime minister, and the painstaking job of moving the Spanish right toward the political center finally went to his protegé, the current prime minister, José María Aznar.

Galicia’s regional elections, to be held in October, are expected to hotly contested with the candidacy of fiery opposition leader Xose Manuel Beiras of the leftist Galician Nationalist Bloc.

Frank Griffiths may be reached at fgriffiths@suite101.com

Go To Page: 1

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic