Between 1979 and 1982, the Christian Democrat Óscar Alzaga (Madrid, 1942) –co-founder of the UCD–, refused five times to be a minister at the proposal of Adolfo Suárez and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo.
But isn't it the highest aspiration of a politician to be a minister?
I'm not cut out for a professional politician. My vocation was to be a professor of Constitutional Law. I was in the opposition, illegally, to lay the foundations for a democracy. I appreciated those proposals, but my answer was very clear. Politics was never a profession for me, but rather an ethical commitment.
Commitment that led him to Congress in the constituent legislature, as a UCD deputy. How do you synthesize the rise and fall of it?
UCD was a unique game. I suggested a coalition with Liberals, Christian Democrats and centrists, and small Social Democratic groups. But the reading of Adolfo Suárez is not to promote that coalition, but to make a more integrated union. It was in contradiction with the European tradition, where Liberals, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats had their own organization. It is one thing for all of them to form a great centrist coalition, which according to the polls could win elections that would lead to a Constituent Assembly, and another for Suárez, former national head of the Movement, to read that this was the Movement bis. We went to the 1977 elections as a coalition, but Suárez imposed the lists and later the merger into the UCD, now as a single party. But it made no sense that liberals and social democrats were in the same party, it was not explainable in Europe, it was hardly intelligible. And each group continued to meet for its part. The dynamic was not inclusive, but recovery by these families of their own space and personality. What was seen by the electorate, rightly so, as the explosion, failure and burial of the party.
He was a speaker in the parliamentary debates of many legislative projects, from the Statute to the Law of the Judiciary.
When the time came to legislate, I was the only professor of constitutional law that UCD had, so I was a rapporteur for so many laws developing the Constitution.
Was the 23-F decisive for the PSOE to achieve that massive electoral support in 1982?
The 23-F was not a military coup, I already said it when I was in my seat and they ordered us to throw ourselves on the ground. I think I know what happened on 23-F, but I've never told it, because it's sad.
And the PSOE devastated the 28-O.
The polls had already announced, in unquestionable terms, that the majority would vote for the PSOE. Everyone was prepared for the recount to yield the result of their absolute majority. It was very easy to understand: the UCD had exploded, the citizenry was openly pro-European and a change to the geographical left, to the PSOE, seemed logical. We all understood it, without considering it a drama or something worrying, not at all.
What did it mean for Spain?
It was pending to enter, as a full member, in the great European club. UCD was viewed from Europe with respect, but it was not understood that a person who had been at the forefront of the Francoist Movement was the leader. They were still studying us. The arrival of the PSOE confirmed that our electoral system was fully authentic. And it was confirmed that a group could orderly hand over power to those who had won the elections, without fractures. That the PSOE won the elections meant for Europe that Spain was a democracy. And it was really possible to start the negotiation to join the European community.
28-O thus demonstrated to Europe that Spain is a democracy.
It's a perfect summary, yes.
Do you miss that capacity for agreement between different?
Yes. Democracy needs two complementary attitudes. From political pluralism must be born a majority that governs and minorities that sit on the benches of the opposition. But the general interest of the community, for major issues, requires dialogue and understanding. Go arm in arm, united.
