Manuel Fraga Iribarne

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Manuel Fraga Iribarne (October 2007)

Manuel Fraga Iribarne (born November 23, 1922 in Vilalba near Lugo , Galicia , † January 15, 2012 in Madrid ) was a Spanish politician .

During the time of Franquism , he was minister from 1962 to 1969 . During and after Spain's transition to democracy, the Transición , he was one of the leading figures of the conservative camp, led the Alianza Popular (AP) party alliance he founded in 1976 and was the first chairman of the Partido Popular (PP) that emerged in 1989 and in 1990 until 2005 Head of Government of the Autonomous Region of Galicia .

Career and political work

Manuel Fraga Iribarne studied law at the University of Santiago de Compostela . He began his political career during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco as a member of the fascist Falange. In 1951 Fraga became general secretary of the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica ("Institute for Hispanic Culture"), a Falangist-dominated institution for international cooperation in the Spanish-speaking world under the ideological leadership of Spain. Later Fraga u. a. Positions in the Ministry of Education (from 1955 to 1958) and in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Spanish Cortes .

From 1962 to 1969 he was the Spanish Minister for Tourism and Information. During this period there was, on the one hand, a certain Europeanization of Spain, which found its expression in the beginning tourism boom , on the other hand, a restrictive press and censorship policy , which was intended to safeguard the existing system against oppositional influences. This censorship was slightly relaxed but not fundamentally liberalized in 1966 by a new press law known as the “Fraga Law”. As information minister, Fraga was directly responsible for the ideological control and influencing of the public and for maintaining the political regime of Franquism and, among other things, announced the execution of political prisoners, for example in the case of the communist activist Julián Grimau , executed in 1963 , who triggered an international storm of protest.

During the Spiegel affair in the Federal Republic of Germany, Fraga played a role when, through an official government statement, he exposed the federal government's denial that the arrest of Conrad Ahlers in Torremolinos on October 27, 1962 had not been initiated by German authorities. This led to a government crisis in Bonn and finally ended with the dismissal of Franz Josef Strauss as Minister of Defense.

At the beginning of 1969, at the suggestion of the German ambassador in Madrid Hermann Meyer-Lindenberg , Fraga was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , which led to protests in Germany because the state of emergency had been imposed in Spain shortly before. Willy Brandt in particular came under pressure as Foreign Minister of the then still ruling grand coalition. The Foreign Office , which he headed, justified the award by stating that the decision for the award had already been made before the latest developments, and Meyer-Lindenberg gave the reason for his proposal that Fraga had rendered services to German-Spanish relations for years. In protest, Karl Gerold , the publisher of the Frankfurter Rundschau , returned the Federal Cross of Merit that had been awarded to him a few years earlier.

Fraga during the transition in Spain

In 1973 Fraga became the Spanish ambassador to Great Britain . After Franco's death in December 1975 under King Juan Carlos I, he became Minister of the Interior and Vice Prime Minister in the government of Carlos Arias Navarro . Under Fraga's responsibility as minister, there were several bloody incidents during operations by state security forces: the armed national police killed five workers in Vitoria-Gasteiz in March 1976 and injured another 100. In an attack on a left- wing Carist pilgrimage in Montejurra (Navarra), which included Around 20 left-wing parties and organizations were invited, two supporters of the socialist-oriented Carlist pretender Carlos Hugo von Bourbon-Parma were murdered in May 1976 and numerous others injured. Behind the murders were restorative Franquist forces within the Guardia Civil and the secret service operation Operación Reconquista , which were supported by Fraga and the Prime Minister Arias Navarro. The Argentine exile Rodolfo Almirón, former leader of the Argentine Alianza-Anticomunista-Argentina death squad, was head of Fragas Personal Protection from 1981 to 1984. Almirón was also personally present at the 1976 Montejurra attack.

As opposition leader Manuel Fraga meets Prime Minister Felipe González (1983)

In 1976, on Fraga's initiative, the party alliance Alianza Popular ("People's Alliance"), which was made up of several conservative and bourgeois parties and was the predecessor of the People's Party ( Partido Popular , PP) that ruled until June 2018 , was founded as a collective movement of the right-wing Catholic and national Spanish spectrum under a democratic sign understanding. Manuel Fraga became the first general secretary of the new group and in 1979 took over the chairmanship of the alliance. As a member of the committee entrusted with drafting the Spanish constitution of 1978 , which is still in force today , Fraga was one of the “fathers of the constitution”. In the parliamentary elections of 1977, 1979, 1982 and 1986 he was elected to the Spanish Chamber of Deputies , where he was opposition leader since 1982 after the election victory of Felipe González ( PSOE ). From 1987 to 1989 he was a member of the European Parliament . After a series of political quarrels, the Partido Popular was formed in 1989 from the Alianza Popular , of which Fraga was the first chairman.

In the elections of December 17, 1989 for the regional parliament of his home region Galicia, the PP received an absolute majority, whereupon Fraga was elected head of government of the Galician regional government on February 5, 1990 . In the later regional parliament elections on October 17, 1993, October 19, 1997 and October 21, 2001, the Galician branch of the party under Fraga's leadership won an absolute majority several times and Fraga remained head of government for many years. In the previously economically backward region, he promoted the infrastructure and tourism and ensured the establishment of the Galician language as the regional official language. It was not until the regional elections on June 19, 2005 that the conservative People's Party narrowly lost an absolute majority to the Galician Socialists ( Partido Socialista de Galicia , PSdeG) and the nationalist Galician bloc ( Bloque Nacionalista Galego , BNG). In August 2005 Emilio Pérez Touriño (PSdeG) replaced Fraga as head of government. As chairman of the Galician People's Party, Fraga resigned on January 16, 2006 at the age of 83 at a party conference in Santiago de Compostela ; Alberto Núñez Feijoo was elected as his successor . This ended Fraga's political era in the public eye. However, from March 2006 to December 2011, until shortly before his death, he was a member of the Senate , the upper house of the Spanish Cortes Generales , sent by the regional parliament of Galicia .

Fraga is considered to be one of the most polarizing figures in Spanish politics since Franco's death. He was the political foster father of José María Aznar , who succeeded him in 1990 in the party chairmanship and was Spanish Prime Minister from 1996-2004. Its central importance for the People's Party is also shown by the fact that Fraga held the honorary chairmanship of his party from his resignation from the party leadership until his death as founding president and also spoke in political debates.

family

Manuel Fraga Iribarne was married to María del Carmen Estévez, who died on February 23, 1996. He was the father of five children. His daughter Carmen Fraga Estévez is also a politician and a member of the European Parliament.

Honors

Fragas statue in Cambados

Web links

Commons : Manuel Fraga Iribarne  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Manuel Fraga Iribarne  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Daniel Woolls (AP): Veteran Spanish politician Fraga dies at age 89 ( Memento from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), obituary on seattlepi.com from January 16, 2012, viewed on January 12, 2013 (English)
  2. ↑ a b Manuel Fraga Iribarne, Aide of Franco and Spain Political Force, Dies at 89 , obituary on nytimes.com of January 16, 2012, accessed January 16, 2012
  3. ↑ a b Was it , Der Spiegel , February 17, 1969.
  4. ^ Panne , Die Zeit , February 21, 1969.
  5. ↑ 〉 See: Floren Aoiz: El jarrón roto. ISBN 84-8136-329-4 , and Diego Carcedo: Sáenz de Santamaría: el general que cambio de bando. ISBN 84-8460-309-1 .
  6. ↑ Denuncian que Almirón también participó en la ultraderecha española ( Memento of July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Argentine News Agency Télam , January 6, 2007 (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Fraga Iribarne, Manuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish politician and head of government, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Vilalba near Lugo
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 2012
Place of death Madrid