Word: rez
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Premier Adolfo Suárez Gonz›lez once described himself as "a tightrope walker." And with some reason. Since his appointment by King Juan Carlos nearly four months ago, Suárez, 44, has had to balance pressures from rightists, leftists and regional separatists while trying to guide Spain from Franco-era authoritarianism to a new age of democracy. He has also had to cope with a deteriorating economy and a rash of demonstrations, strikes and violence...
Last week Suárez began his riskiest high-wire venture yet by submitting a long-awaited political reform bill to the 561-member Cortes (parliament), still a conservative bastion. The measure would go a long way toward turning Spain into a parliamentary democracy. The Cortes-in which less than one-fifth of the deputies are popularly elected -would be replaced by a two-house legislature. One would be a popularly elected lower chamber of 350 seats, allotted on a proportional basis, and the other an upper house representing Spain's 51 provinces that would have 244 members...
...DINA is fairly ecumenical in finding victims; former parliamentarians and army officers have been tortured, as well as suspect leftist terrorists. Recounts Carlos Pérez Tobar, once a lieutenant in the Chilean army arrested by the junta after he tried to resign his commission: "I was tortured with electric shock, forced to live in underground dungeons so small that in one I could only stand up and in the other only lie down. I was beaten incessantly, dragged before a mock firing squad, and regularly told that my wife and child and relatives were suffering the same fate...
...three names submitted by the Council of the Realm, an advisory body with a strong rightist outlook. Juan Carlos, however, seems to have had enough prestige and control over the council to get from it the kind of moderately reform-minded Premier he wanted. In addition to Suárez, the council suggested Gregorio López Bravo, conservative former Foreign Minister under Franco, and Federico Silva Muñoz, a former Public Works Minister under Franco and reputedly the most liberal of the three candidates...
Although considered somewhat conservative in the past, Suárez fully supported the modest steps toward democracy that Spain has taken in the past six months. In recent weeks, for example, he was the leading government spokesman in the Cortes for the Cabinet-drafted laws legalizing non-Communist political parties, guaranteeing the rights of assembly and public demonstrations and reforming labor relations. Hardline Franquistas charged that Suárez had helped destroy the National Movement he headed by supporting the reforms, but the measures did not go far enough to please either opposition leaders or Juan Carlos, who felt...