The corpse of the dictator fired up the election campaign

In the 44. The year after his death, the dictator's Francisco Franco is completely subject to dispute unplanned, became in the Spanish election campaign. The Spanish government, the Socialist workers party (PSOE), announced in March the date for the reburial of the Remains of Franco: the 10. June, under exclusion of the Public and without the media.

will not be a dispute over the valuation of the dictatorship. Because all the major parties are largely in agreement in the fact that Spain was under Franco, a rule of injustice. The leader of the conservative people's party (PP), which emerged from a franqui thematic grouping, not deny this. In Parliament has included the PP in the vote on the exhumation of the voice.

the core of the dispute is the assessment of the intervention of Franco in the civil war.

the subject of party dispute before the early parliamentary elections on Sunday is rather the way the Cabinet Sánchez has tried to implement this Plan. The phrases of the Opposition, ranging from "bungling" to "breaking the law". For heated debates, the Attempts of the socialist cultural politicians to demonize the opponents of Franco in the civil war (1936-1939), the collective hero, and to elevate morally.

the core of the dispute is the assessment of the intervention of Franco in the civil war. The left condemned the national Catholic General, whose troops were supported by Hitler and Mussolini solid, as the fascist rebels, has destroyed the constitutional order, namely the Republic. The right bearing but sees in him the lesser Evil in the face of Attempts by, from Moscow sent Commissars to establish in Spain a Stalinist Regime.

The Stalinist threat

At the Puerta de Alcalá, a neo-classical triumphal arch in the centre of Madrid, hung out at the beginning of the civil war, large posters with portraits of Stalin and other Soviet leaders. The defender of the Rebellion of Franco's remind, that the citizens found the war in the same years as the Stalinist purges in the Soviet Union and red associations have shot thousands of representatives of the bourgeois order, including politicians and priests, in the Madrid suburb of Paracuellos, as well as in many other places. Also, it is well documented that the Moscow-controlled associations, among other left groups, which they regarded as political opponents, causing a bloodbath – especially in Catalonia.

A huge white cross on the slope of a green hill, the mass grave marked by Paracuellos; it is on the right spot of the runway of the airport of Madrid-Barajas. The cross of Paracuellos was the Symbol and the Argument against the Transfiguration of the red popular front, which saw not only the fascists, but also the moderate bourgeois groups as enemies.

dictator Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975. Photo: Getty

For the Left, however, the 150-Meter-high concrete cross above the valley of the Fallen, 50 kilometers North-West of Madrid, the Symbol of the franqui tables, Terror and cynicism. The mighty cross stands on one of the forced laborers in the Rock-hewn cave Church and the tomb of Franco is located behind the main altar. So the debate about the Caudillo between these two gigantic Cross moves.

Prime Minister Sánchez had, shortly after his arrival in June 2018 that he wanted to enforce the reburial of Franco quickly. But then a message made the round that hit his minority Cabinet completely unprepared: The now-deceased daughter, Francos had bought a family tomb in the crypt of the Almudena Cathedral next to the Madrid's Royal Palace. The Archbishop of Madrid, cardinal Carlos Osoro, shocked Sánchez and his comrades-in-arms with the banal observation that there was a Church have no legal hand, to prohibit burial of the sarcophagus in this crypt. Franco's tomb in the heart of Madrid in the remote valley of the Fallen – this would be an unprecedented defeat for Sánchez.

the Benedictine to provide cross

in Addition, the Benedictines, the house of lords of the rock Church with the tomb of Franco, protest against a "disturbance of the peace of the Dead". They were also not of the threat to impress that the government will terminate the 1958 closed Treaty on the Transfer of real estate in the valley of the Fallen to the Benedictine.

Finally, Sánchez sent the Deputy Prime Minister, Carmen Calvo in autumn, in the Vatican. She came back with the message that the Church is a reburial of Franco will not stand in the way. In February she got a letter from the heads of government of the Vatican, the cardinal Secretary of state Pietro Parolin. She proudly announced that she had brought to the Vatican, go a step further: The Catholic Church, Franco was once privileged to support actively the Plan of the government and will also bring the Benedictines to reason.

But a few days ago it was announced that Calvo had hit a phrase from the letter to the Vatican that makes things in a very different light. It reads as follows: "If the parties involved reach a consensus." It is located in Madrid: The Benedictine refer to the concordat, which prohibits the state to Interfere in Church rooms.

exhumation plan inadequate

Franco's grandson declared to have filed against the Cabinet decision to the Supreme court. The judge must now consider whether the government has the right, the tomb in the rock Basilica to repeal and prohibit a new burial in the crypt of Madrid's Cathedral. There are questions, the expected fundamental in the relationship between the Church and the state of stirring, it will be a long process. In addition, a smaller district judge has declared the exhumation of the government's plan is inadequate because it contains no information about the technical security of the Work.

members of the Cabinet Sánchez spoke of "obstruction", it is not without reason: In the judiciary-goers of the conservative PP to sit at the decisive party. And this uses all of the delays and glitches, to Sanchez, to give a lot of sounds, but not as head of government, the rule of law, or to pay attention not miss.

The top people of the right-wing liberal citizens party Ciudadanos speak also to convert the valley of the Fallen, a memorial to all the victims of the civil war and Franco's tomb in the Church of rock pick up, but take the opportunity to Sánchez as an Amateur show, announcing plans to do many things, but achieved nothing.

exhumation under time pressure

against All odds, Carmen Calvo announced that on 10.June, the exhumation will take place. The last resting place of Franco will be the cemetery of Mingorrubio on the Northern edge of Madrid, of the authority for national cultural heritage. In the nearby Pardo Palace, Franco had resided in the cemetery his wife is buried.

Although it is not inconceivable that the government of Sánchez loses the elections this Sunday. But it is in his Cabinet, the formation of a new government to last long, Sanchez and so on 10. June will be a business leader in office. He should then, after only a year in office, cede, he would have enrolled at least with the reburial of Franco in the Spanish history books.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 27.04.2019, 07:31 PM