89 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Are there examples of oligarchic governments being removed peacefully?
It’s debatable if Spain and Portugal were oligarchic, but both had peaceful transitions from autocratic governments to democracies.
Portugal was under a military dictatorship that overthrew the First Republic in 1926, which transitioned to Fascist control in 1933. The Fascist government lasted until 1974, although it began losing power rapidly after the death of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar in 1970; he had been de-facto dictator since 1932. After he became severely ill in 1968 some of his lieutenants began making halfhearted attempts at democratizing the country, but not much came of it until growing conflict over Portuguese colonial policy came to a head in 1972. Facing diplomatic isolation on top of domestic unrest over a stagnating economic and en-masse immigration of ethnic Portuguese leaving her colonies, as well as discontent over the cost of colonial counterinsurgency, the Portuguese Army launched a coup in on April 24, 1974. Huge numbers of civilians came out to support the coup, which was largely bloodless (government security forces killed four civilians; the perpetrators were swiftly arrested, tried, and convicted of murder). The military government quickly moved to establish elections, which took place on 25 April 1975; these elections established a 250-member commission responsible for drafting a constitution, which entered into force on 2 April 1976. Over the summer of 1975, about 10 more people died in clashes between pro- and anti-socialist protesters, but these subsided with the new constitution.
Spain’s transition was smoother. Francisco Franco came to power after the Spanish Civil War, and reigned until his death in 1975. In 1969, he designated Prince Juan Carlos, grandson of the Spanish king, as his successor; Juan Carlos was largely seen as a supportive Francoist at the time. Once Franco died, however, Juan Carlos - now crowned as King Juan Carlos I - quickly changed his tune, giving a speech on 22 November 1975 wherein he publicly supported a transition to a constitutional monarchy. After substantial negotiation within Spain’s heretofore-rubber-stamp-parliament, the Cortes, King Carlos appointed Adolfo Suárez as Prime Minister in July 1976. Suárez was a Francoist, but supported the King’s plan for a transition to democratic rule; his faction within the Cortes swiftly developed a plan for democratic elections, passing it into law in June 1977. The Spanish state held elections on 15 December 1977, electing the Constituent Cortes, a transitional parliament intended to develop a new Constitution. They completed this process in summer 1978, passing the Constitution into law via a referendum held on 6 December 1978, formally ending Spanish autocracy and transitioning the state to a constitutional monarchy that remains in effect. (The Spanish King has relatively little power, like other European constitutional monarchies, and for all intents and purposes Spain is a fully democratic state.)
There *were* deaths during this process in Spain, but they weren’t directly related to the government transition (they stemmed from separatist terrorism, largely in the Basque region), and the Spanish military did not interfere in the political process - a major goal of all factions throughout the process was to avoid a military coup, whatever the outcome of the process would be.
Comment by Chaos_Slug at 21/01/2025 at 23:13 UTC
30 upvotes, 1 direct replies
There *were* deaths during this process in Spain, but they weren’t directly related to the government transition (they stemmed from separatist terrorism, largely in the Basque region),
ETA accounted for about half the political deaths during the Spanish transition. There were also murders by the police and far-right groups that had some veiled police support as well, but this is not as commonly talked about.
the Spanish military did not interfere in the political process
At least two "fathers of the Constitution" claimed to have been under direct life threat by the Spanish military during the making of the Constitution and that the military intervened in the negotiation of part of the Constitution, such as article 8.
Comment by anchaescastilla at 28/01/2025 at 00:12 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I have to disagree with your point about Spain. I agree with defining Francoist Spain as an oligarchy, but I disagree with the idea that it stopped being one with the Transición. While the oligarchy gave up some political powers, there was no change in the economic structure of the country whatsoever, and very little change in the judiciary structure, so francoist economic elites were able to keep most of their privileges and power after the new parliamentary system was stablished. If anything, the Transición was a change from an absolutist oligarchy to a parliamentary one, where the economic elites that won the civil war, and the new ones born out of the 60s economic boom, gave up a bit of political power so they could keep all of their economic power, including capital, land and media ownership. Even today the Church remains the biggest land owner in the country, the families that controlled capital still do, most companies in IBEX 35 are mergers of oligarchich companies, including media and infrastructure ones. One can argue that if something diluted the power of the francoist oligarchy was the massive influx of foreign capital and supranational regulations coming into place with the inclusion of Spain into the EEC and later EU, and that is to be argued. To this day, the list of wealthiest individuals and companies in the country is dominated, with some exceptions (like inditex), by the heirs of Francoist oligarchs and the structures they created under the dictatorship, and they still benefict from their economic and judiciary privileges.