Spain: Voter No. 41 Does His Duty

“Franco or the street cleaner,” boasted anofficial of Spain’s Ministry of the Interior, “every voter is entitledto the same treatment.” Well, not exactly.

Some 8,000,000 Spanish “heads of families” went to the polls last weekin municipal elections to cast their ballots for a list ofgovernment-approved candidates. Voter No. 41 in Section 9, Quarter 5 ofMadrid’s Revised University District stepped into a Cadillac for thebrief ride from El Pardo Palace to a tiny yellow schoolhouse. There,under the gaze of his own official portrait, El Caudillo greetedmembers of the municipal election board, who graciously waived theusual identification procedure. Franco reached into an inside pocket ofhis double-breasted dark grey suit, removed an already filled-inballot. He handed it to the board president, who solemnly announced,”His Excellency Francisco Franco Bahamonde, profession—Chief of State,married and with residence in the Palace of El Pardo, votes,” anddropped the folded paper in a lantern-shaped glass ballot box. It wasthe first time that Dictator Franco had cast a ballot since the CivilWar began in 1936.