Spanish Socialists in Power

The national elections of October 28, 1982 opened a new chapter for post-Franco Spain. After 37 years in exile and barely six years since rejoining political life at home, Spain’s Socialist party (the PSOE—Socialist Workers’ party) found itself catapulted into power by a landslide vote. Nothing like it had ever happened in Spain. The Union of the Democratic Center (UCD), which had governed since 1977, was literally wiped off the political map, while the Communist party(PCE) pl...