Word: socialistic
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Marchais bills himself as the "anti-Giscard candidate," but the non-Communist French press routinely describes his speeches as "doubletalk." One prominent Socialist leader goes so far as to call him a "Janus, who has two faces: one the anti-Giscard candidate, the other turned against François Mitterrand." Pundits insist that Marchais actually has a carefully masked preference for the re-election of the conservative Giscard over the leftist Mitterrand. His main reason, they reckon: the fear that a Socialist victory would severely undercut the influence of the smaller Communist Party and relegate it to a helpless neither...
...Communist tactics are strikingly reminiscent of the 1978 Assembly campaign, when Marchais deliberately sabotaged the left's chances of coming to power. The Communist-Socialist alliance of the time, called the Union of the Left, had been running ahead of the Giscard government in every poll when the Communists suddenly torpedoed its chances...
...powerful to be punished and shunted out of political life. Instead, Spain's wary civilian leaders are seeking to pacify the generals, giving them, in effect, a silent veto in many areas of national policy. "We now have three chambers in the Cortes," laments a prominent Socialist legislator, "the Congress, the Senate and the joint chiefs of the general staff...
That is because the Socialists-once the leading contenders to form the next government-now seem unable to mount effective opposition. Before the coup, the Socialists had hoped to increase their vote substantially in the next elections, expected in 1982, at the expense of the ruling Union of the Democratic Center. They had hoped to woo away the U.C.D.'s fickle liberal wing and form a broad majority coalition. This now seems unlikely, since it would split the U.C.D. and thus endanger the entire party system-a prospect that, in the wake of the coup attempt, chills practically everybody...
...Tejero's political career, the Socialist setback, even the stifling of political debate, all pale beside the Basque problem. Most analysts expect ETA to provoke the army into bloody repression over the coming months, and they expect the generals to respond in character, probably by demanding some form of martial law. The resulting strains may be too much for the civilian government. "Everyone said we would have a difficult time when Franco died," says a senior official in Madrid, "but we have had a relatively comfortable time so far. Perhaps the real transition to democracy begins now." -By John...