The broad rejection of the Amnesty law agreed by the PSOE and the Catalan nationalists, and which ranges between 50% and 70% of Spaniards, could lead one to think that it is an unprecedented phenomenon. Especially if this level of citizen rejection is compared to the broad support that would have had the amnesty that was approved during the democratic transition, in 1977. However, the polls of the time reveal some chiaroscuro that question the supposed unanimity around a measure of grace that sought to culminate national reconciliation after a devastating Civil War and four decades of dictatorship.
In this sense, Franco’s death led to a succession of measures of grace that culminated in the Amnesty law of October 1977. The first measure was the so-called “coronation pardon”, which basically meant a reduction of penalties and which excluded terrorism offences. It was necessary to wait until the summer of 1976, already with Adolfo Suárez in government, for an amnesty to be approved that included “all crimes and offenses of political intent”, as long as they had not “endangered the life of the people”.
Well, this measure of grace that left out the terrorists already satisfied half of the Spaniards (according to the CIS), while only 14% rejected it and the rest (34%) were indifferent or did not speak. Of course, skepticism increased when asked about the amnesty’s contribution to national reconciliation. Only 40% considered that the approval of the measure would be positive for the reunion among Spaniards, while one in four did not recognize a positive value and almost a third did not express themselves.
However, the antagonism shown by the Spanish towards the grace measures can be seen with particular clarity in the polls that were carried out shortly before the promulgation of the “total amnesty”, in October 1977, approved by almost 300 of the 350 deputies of the first democratic Courts. The amnesty, it must be remembered, affected “all acts of political intent, regardless of the result”, and meant the release of dozens of terrorists with blood crimes (who in several cases resumed violent activism).
From there, the paradox was that only a third of Spaniards (not including the citizens of the Basque Country) thought that the grace measures adopted until then “should be extended”; that is to say, a rate of 33% which was less than half of the conservative electorate. And the most significant: only one in ten consulted defended the extension of the amnesty to include political crimes, “regardless of their outcome”; in other words, “violence against people’s lives”.
It is also true that only 16% of Spaniards considered the clemency measures adopted until then “sufficient”, while one in ten even described them as “excessive” (a rate that exceeded 31% among the voters of the right). But be careful: up to 40% were not pronounced. And when asked about the requirements to extend an eventual amnesty, only 17% agreed to apply it to terrorists who did not undertake to “definitely renounce violence”.
In this sense, more than 60% of those consulted (and 70% of the center and right-wing electorate) defended a “total amnesty” and definitive, but limited only to those who renounced violence. Even in the Basque Country, 45% demanded a renunciation of terrorism, compared to 31% who defended an indiscriminate pardon. And when it came to the fine print of the measure of grace, only 42% were clearly in favor of a genuine amnesty, compared to almost 30% who preferred a pardon. In short, the Amnesty Law of 1977 had limited support from the Spanish, at least in terms of the scope and requirements for the release of terrorists. Not even a measure of this scope – and leaving behind the worst Spain – was not exempt from the divisions that haunt Spanish society.
