Suárez González, Adolfo
Suárez González, Adolfo
(ädôl`fō swä`rāth gōnthä`lĕth), 1932–2014, Spanish lawyer and political leader. Because he had worked in the Nationalist Movement (the Falange) for 18 years and had become its secretary-general after FrancoFranco, Francisco, 1892–1975, Spanish general and caudillo [leader]. He became a general at the age of 32 after commanding the Spanish Foreign Legion in Morocco.
..... Click the link for more information. 's death (1975), centrist and leftist forces opposed his appointment as prime minister by King Juan CarlosJuan Carlos I
, 1938–, king of Spain (1975–2014), b. Rome. The grandson of Alfonso XIII, he was educated in Switzerland and in Spain. Placed by his father, Don Juan de Borbón, under the care of Francisco Franco as a possible successor, he graduated from
..... Click the link for more information. in July, 1976. A year later Suárez led his Union of the Democratic Center to victory in Spain's first free elections in 41 years. His centrist government instituted democratic reforms, and his coalition won the 1979 elections under the new constitution. Less successful as a day-to-day organizer than as a crisis manager, he was replaced as prime minister in 1981; Leopoldo Calvo SoteloCalvo Sotelo, Leopoldo
, 1926–2008, Spanish engineer and political leader. A conservative, he held (1975–77) ministerial posts before becoming (1980) deputy prime minister for economic affairs.
..... Click the link for more information. succeeded him, but only after a failed coup in which Spain's Congress of Deputies was seized while in session. In 1982 he founded the Democratic and Social Center party, but it remained a minor party. He retired from active politics in 1991.
Suárez González, Adolfo
Born Sept. 25, 1932, in Cebreros, Avila Province. Spanish political and state figure; lawyer. Member of the Spanish Trial Law Institute and corresponding member of the Institute of Political Studies.
Suárez studied law at the universities of Salamanca and Madrid. He became active in the National Movement in 1958 and served on the party’s staff from 1960 to 1964. Suárez was civil governor of Segovia Province in 1968 and 1969 and director general of Spanish radio and television from 1969 to 1973. In March 1975 he assumed the post of vice-secretary-general of the National Movement.
As secretary-general of the National Movement, Suárez in December 1975 was given a ministerial post in the first post-Franco government of Spain. He became prime minister in July 1976. In the parliamentary elections of June 1977 he headed the coalition of centrist parties known as the Union of the Democratic Center (UDC). In August 1977 the coalition became a political party with Suárez as its leader. In 1981 he was named honorary chairman of the UDC. Suárez resigned as prime minister in 1981.