Spain’s bruising general election campaign took another bitter turn this week when the parties began rowing over the civil war.
Right-wing Prime Minister José Maria Aznar called on the Socialist Party leader, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to order his campaign team to stop making references to the conflict that killed at least 500 000 people.
Aznar’s demands came after the Socialist leader of the Catalan regional government, Pasqual Maragall, warned of a ”return to 1936” (the year General Francisco Franco and others rebelled against the elected government) if Aznar’s People’s Party were elected for a third time.
Maragall claimed that if the Socialists were not elected, or if the People’s Party did not change its attitude to regions such as Catalonia and the Basque country, there would be a return to the atmosphere of 1936.
”We need a Spain that is capable of living calmly with its own diversity,” Maragall said. ”If we do not manage that, then we have failed as a country once more and we will go back — to 1936, to the beginning of the 20th century.”
Aznar said the statements had to be retracted. ”That is like saying that if you do not agree with me, then you are prepared to return to the times of the civil war. Whoever is in charge in the Socialist Party … should retract that completely.”
One of the Socialists’ main weapons during a campaign in which they trail about 10 points behind the People’s Party has been to paint Aznar and Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as part of a new authoritarian right.
Aznar has decided not to run again in the general elections in March and has handed over the reins of the People’s Party to Rajoy. — Â