THE NEW DEMOCRACIES - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 61

most damning complaints would eventually come. As foreign invest-
ment raised the level of domestic prosperity, socialist ideals seemed to
give way to capitalist ambition. Cronyism and corruption generated
scandal after scandal within the González administration. The prime
minister alternated between unconvincing reassurances and blustering
denials. While he traveled abroad enjoying plaudits as the new hero of
international socialism, socialism was beginning to lose its luster at
home among his compatriots. The government made compromise after
compromise, generating embarrassment among its supporters and con-
tempt among its rivals. González, in the 10th year of his premiership,
attempted to refurbish his image and celebrate the “New Spain.” The
quincentenary of Columbus's voyage to the New World in 1992 was
marked by lavish construction projects, an international exposition in
Seville, and the staging of the Olympic Games at Barcelona. The results
were decidedly mixed. Although circumstances ranging from financial
problems to the diminished prestige of Columbus and his colonial heri-
tage undercut much of the quincentenary celebrations, González himself
was the principal loser due to the perceived irrelevance of his priorities.
Regionalism had come back to haunt the government after the hasty
and improvisational efforts made to dispose of the issue in the 1978
constitution. The Socialist regime had wavered between concessions to
the lesser pretensions of opportunistic autonomists and unproductive
negotiations with the Catalans and Basques. The country was now
morselized into 17 regions, many of which had no serious claim to
autonomy and merely complicated the administrative process by their
endless complaints. The only autonomists who really mattered, those
of Catalonia and the Basque Country, were even more troublesome but
could not be silenced by minor favors. In his attempts to curb terrorist
violence by the militant Basque nationalists of the ETA (Euskadi Ta
Askatasuna, or “Basque Homeland and Freedom”), González autho-
rized brutal actions by his police. Prisoners were in a number of instances
tortured or even murdered. The prime minister may not have specifi-
cally approved of these actions, but his defense of his underlings amid
judicial inquiries and mounting public outcry hastened his downfall. In
the election of 1996, the PSOE was defeated by the Popular Party, under
José María Aznar. A solemn, even gloomy conservative, Aznar repre-
sented a turn back toward the Right, although by no means a reversion
to Franquist principles. Aznar favored the continuation of most of his
predecessor's programs of interactive outreach, economic moderniza-
tion, and cultural freedom, albeit at a more cautious pace. Above all he
was committed to the unity of the nation, and some of his most ardent
combats would be with regionalists rather than with trade unionists