Calvo Sotelo, Leopoldo

Calvo Sotelo, Leopoldo

(lā'əpōl`dō käl`vō sōtĕl`ō), 1926–2008, Spanish engineer and political leader. A conservative, he held (1975–77) ministerial posts before becoming (1980) deputy prime minister for economic affairs. When Adolfo SuárezSuárez González, Adolfo
, 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 Franco's death (1975), centrist and leftist forces opposed his
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 resigned as prime minister in 1981, he succeeded him; his installation was interrupted by an abortive coup in which the parliament was seized while in session. Under Calvo Sotelo, Spain joined NATO and continued its transition from the Franco dictatorship to full-fledged democracy. He resigned before the 1982 elections in which the Socialist party, led by Felipe GonzálezGonzález Márquez, Felipe
, 1942–, Spanish political leader. After joining (1962) what was then the Spanish Socialist Workers' party, González became (1974) its secretary-general and revived it from the moribund position into which it had fallen under
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, was victorious.