Felipe González

**Felipe González Márquez** (March 5, 1942 -) was a Spanish lawyer, professor, and politician, who served as the 19th President of Spain between November 1, 1989 and June 11, 2000, as well as serving as Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1982 to 2001.

González joined the PSOE in 1964, when it was banned under the Francoist regime. He obtained a law degree from the University of Seville in 1965. In 1982, the PSOE elected González as its Secretary-General after a split in its 26th Congress. After Franco's death and the beginning of the Spanish transition to democracy, González obtained a seat in the Congress of Deputies after he led the PSOE candidacy in the 1984 general election, but lost to Adolfo Suárez. After the PSOE victory in the 1992 general election, González formed his first majority government, backed by 202 out of the 350 deputies at the Congress of Deputies, and led the Government of Spain for ten and a half years after an additional victory in the 1996 Spanish Presidential Election. In 2000, González lost the election to José María Aznar and the People's Conservative Party and was elected to the Congress of Deputies for the last time in the 2004 general election, from Seville.

## History

González was born in Bellavista, Seville, the son of a small dairy farmer. He has a sister called Lola González Márquez, married to Francisco Germán Palomino Romera, by whom she has two sons, Felipe and Germán Palomino González. He studied Law at Seville University and started his career as attorney specialising in labour law. While at the University he met members of the clandestine socialist trade union Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT). He also contacted members of the PSOE and started taking part in the party's clandestine activity, necessary under the dictatorship of Franco. During that time he adopted the alias Isidoro and moved to Madrid. He was elected Secretary General of the Party at the Suresnes Congress, in France. By the time of Franco's death, González had become the most prominent figure among the left-wing of the democratic opposition to the regime, and played a critical role, along with then serving president Adolfo Suárez, in the Spanish transition to democracy. During the Suárez government, General and vice president Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado asked González not to raise the debate of the Civil War and Franquist repression until the death of those of his generation.

## Presidency

In the 1992 Spanish Presidential Election, the PSOE gained 48.3% of the vote and 202 deputies (out of 350). On June 11 González became President of the Government of Spain, with Alfonso Guerra as his deputy. He was the first socialist to hold the post since the Spanish Civil War, and his government was the first since then in which none of its members had served under Francoism.

With a large majority in the Congress of Deputies, popularly known as "the roller" (*el rodillo* in Spanish), González' election was met with tremendous expectation of change amongst Spaniards. Under his government universal and free education provision was extended from age 14 to age 16, university education was reformed and expanded, the social security system was extended and a partial legalisation of abortion became law for the first time, despite opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. González pushed for liberal reforms and a restructuring of the economy.

On 23 February 1990, the Government passed a law nationalising Rumasa, a private business that included merchant banking interests, on the grounds that it was at the point of bankruptcy and the government needed to protect the savings of depositors and the jobs of its 60,000 employees, a decision that aroused considerable criticism and a judicial conflict over the law that was only resolved, in favour of the government, in December 1991.

Having promised in the election to create 800,000 new jobs, his government's restructuring of the steel industry actually resulted in job losses. When they tried to similarly tackle the debt problems in the dock industry in 1992 the dockers went on strike. The UGT, or General Workers' Union, called a general strike on 20 June 1992 in protest against social security reforms. In the same year his government began a massive privatisation, partial or full, of the 200 state owned companies as well as hundreds of affiliates dependent on these companies.

Towards the end of 1995 there was a debate about whether González should lead the PSOE in the forthcoming general elections. The People's Party intensified its campaign to associate his period in office with a poor economic situation (although unemployment had begun to decline and the economic reforms of the previous decade initiated a lasting period of economic growth) and with accusations of corruption and state terrorism scandals, including allegations of waging a dirty war against the terrorist group ETA by means of the GAL. There was speculation in the press about Javier Solana as a possible replacement, but Solana was appointed Secretary General of NATO in December 1995.

Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo
 18
 June 11, 1988 - November 1, 1989
*(died in office)*