44: "That won't do": September, 1981 - November 1982
The General Elections of September'81 were to become the model for a decade of unstable politics of the Republic. Some of the faults of the Third Spanish Republic were already there, as the "
presidente sin corona" (uncrowned president): the figure of the
Presidente de la República (President of the Republic) was frequently considered as an attempt to replace the kings with a similarly strong institution.
The problem was that the article 98 of the Constitution gave the President power to
"take all necessary steps" if there was an emergency, and it was often used in the 1990s to issue decrees without the support of Parliament, as the text of the Article did not precisely define the kind of emergency that would justify its use. However, the Parliament had the power to nullify those emergency decree by simple majority action; if the Parliament nullified the decree, the President could, under Article 99, dissolve the Parliament and call for new elections within 60 days.
The other problem that became painfully obvious in 1981 was fragmentation of the vote into too many parties and, therefore, a divided and weak Parliament, as it was almost impossible to establish a majority government. Even worse, the fragmented structure of the voting system shaped the electoral process and helped the anti-system parties of both sides, leading to high levels of party fractionalism and government instability. The difficult economic conditions of those years favoured the radicalization of the voters, too.
This fragmentation was clearly seen in September 1981 when the PSOE found itself unable to form a govern because of the lack of allies and the mutual hatred and mistrust between them and the PIS and the PCE. This all led to Adolfo Suárez becoming, again, prime minister with a quite curious coalition government, as it united the CDS with the social-liberal PDE (a left wing party) and the national-liberal PPE (a right wing party). Thus, Spain had a Socialist president, a Centrist prime minister and a divided parliament.
This coalition government was to last until November 1982. One of its most remembered measures was an increase in the unemployment benefit of an average 40%. Suárez was also quite active in diplomatic relations and very active in improving relations with France and the Arab world. Amazingly, he and the French Prime Minister, the Socialist François Mitterrand, ended up developing grudingly a mutual friendship. Suárez also adopted a tough, uncompromising line with ETA, which led the terrorist band to qualify Suárez of "
a fascist thug disguised with a Phrygian cap". Suárez simply stated to the press: "
Eso no les va a funcionar" ("That won't do"). Those simple words became a famous catchphrase along with the already famous "
puedo prometer y prometo" ("I can promise, and I do promise...") .
Suárez, pressed by his Leftish allies, pursued expansionary monetary and fiscal policies during this tenure. Between 1981 and 1984, his administration pursued such policies in an effort to reduce unemployment. These were moderately successful, as the fiscal measures introduced after 1982, with reductions in income and wealth taxes and an increase in the medium-term public investment programme, were estimated to have created 50,000 additional jobs in 1981–82, or 100,000 if additional public sector employment was included in the figure. This small fall in the unemployment rate, however, was achieved at the cost of a larger budget deficit (which doubled itself in two years), brought about by fiscal expansion.
A weak point of the government were the constant disputes of the CDS ministers with their PPE counterparts over unemployment benefits. In the end, they toppled the Coalition government and, in November 1982, Suárez surprised the world when he annouced a change in the composition of the government, that was to include the PSOE and left out the PPE.