PP (Spanish Popular Party) for English speakers who don't want to be dummies

Franco with his friend Hitler.

Once upon a time, Spain was one of the most advanced countries in Southern Europe. We had a republic under which women could vote, divorce was allowed and there were many political parties and media press. García Lorca, Buñuel, Dalí, Picasso, and many other artists were free to express themselves.

Unfortunately, it was a short time, just from 1931 to 1936. That year, General Franco, after having erased all his competitors, became the leader of a coup d’état. It was the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Franco obtained help from his friends, Hitler and Mussolini, and after three years and as many deaths as 100,000, in 1939 he conquered his own country. But, from that moment to his death in 1975, Spain was divided into the good catholic ones and the bad red ones (Franco killed 50.000 republicans from 1939 to 1975, although only 10% from those ones had committed violent crimes).

He forbid everything which had to do with freedom: including political parties, elections, human rights, etc.

Moreover, the alleged communist part of Spain was severely punished. Prisons were more crowded than ever (he imprisoned more than 1,000,000 people only because of political reasons) and Spaniards were more hungry than anytime in their life (they had to use rationing coupons for many years).

Franco and his Catholic and fascists friends ruled Spain for 39 years. In those years he imprisoned more than 1,000.000 people only for political reasons . After his death, there was a period of confusion, but finally his will was accomplished.

They lost their lives and their names.

Thanks to Franco, the grandson of the King who had to flee after Franco's coup d'etat, Juan Carlos I, was the new Spanish King. Perhaps Franco thought he would continue with another dictatorship, but, a former minister from Franco's cabinet, Adolfo Suárez, and the King himself pledged the commitment to a true democracy.

It was very hard to fulfill a real democracy. In the first years, many people suffered the rage of those who didn't want a free country. Even, in 1981, there was a failed coup d'état, which increased the King's popularity, because he was able to stop the insurgent military (but they were free from prison in a very short time, although some of them had tried another rebellion a couple of years before).

From 1982 to 1994, after some Suarez's catholic democratic party years, the moderate left wing (PSOE) ruled in Spain, but corruption put that period into an end and Felipe González lost all his credit. Because of the Spanish people's unhappiness, a new party, consisting from former Franco's men and their legacy, rose to power.

Aznar chose as ministers relatives of former Franco's ministers and started a long and hard way to full capitalism. He sold the best Spanish companies to his friends, he made war against Iraq together with Bush and Blair, and corruption began to split them as well as it did with Felipe González's PSOE.

Eight years passed and a new leader from PSOE was elected as Spain's Prime Minister. His name: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. His first decision was leaving Iraq. The first two years everything was going better (specially amongst poor people) until global crisis started to affect the weak structures of the country (mainly building and tourism).

Rajoy, the PP's leader, likes corrupts.

Nowadays, PP men and women are trying to move general elections forward in order to take advantage of the bad figures about unemployment and economy. It is said that they want Spain to collapse in order to reach the power. Day after day they attack the whole government, although many of PP's politicians are involved in dark issues, and they even have to attend courts all around the country because of several allegations.

PP won the elections to towns and regions last May 2011, but they don't really care about this. They had used this victory as propaganda for the next General Elections. They want the whole country again with a former minister from Aznar's cabinet as a leader, Mariano Rajoy (it is commonly believed that he is homosexual, but the PP's founder, one of Franco's men, made him getting married with a young and rich woman. I quote this rumour because PP's people don't like gays and lesbians). Anyway, If PP wins back, Spain will be far less free and democratic.

Right now, alleged journalist and writers try to reinvent History with such weak reasons as the fact that Franco put Spain into war because he needed to free the country from communism. They have never said that Franco broke the democratic rules with violence and death and brought the country to a very long crisis, went away from the free world (United Nations, European Union and so on), and punished everybody who was against his ideas or his strict catholic moral.

'The war which Franco won', a big lie.

PP's politicians have never condemned Franco's dictatorship, even when they ruled Spain.

Nowadays, there are many descendants from a lot of civilians murdered by Franco without a trial, who don't know where they are buried. They have to look for the corpses by themselves, because the Government doesn't help them. PP's men and women think it's better not to look back. Perhaps because they feel like the winning party in that cruel and not so distant Civil War.

By the way, Spain is still the second country in missing people, only after Cambodia. 340.000 Spaniards disappeared during Franco's dictatorship. In addition, 30,000 children are missing forever.

Being a fascist in Spain is still legal.

My point is that those who defend criminals are prone to commit crimes. And in Spain there is a political party which hasn't done anything to heal the wounds from millions of human beings who suffered a very long and sadistic dictatorship. This is, ladies and gentlemen, our tragedy: PP, a political party which is supported by half of the country and will rise to power again next year, because they have been succesful to make Spaniards believe that they are a moderate and democratic party, even though PP's member can't chose their candidates and can't vote nor express themselves freely.