A Maura to pilot the Transition in the Islands

PalmHe was the great-grandson of the prominent Mallorcan politician Antoni Maura, as well as Duke of Maura and Grandee of Spain—as are all dukes—a law graduate, and also a diplomat. In January 1976, 50 years ago, Ramiro Pérez-Maura took office as Civil Governor of the Balearic Islands, to lead a process whose direction was then unclear to most: the Transition. Later, he would be one of the founders in the Islands of the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), a senator, and a member of the pre-autonomy government.

The dictator had only been dead for two months, and the new head of state—now called "the Emeritus"—wanted to project an image of continuity and confirm as president of the national government the same person who had served under Franco: Carlos Arias Navarro. The Minister of the Interior—now the Ministry of the Interior—was Manuel Fraga, later the founder of Aliança Popular, the nucleus of the current People's Party. It's hard to believe now, but back then Fraga was considered a 'progressive' compared to the 'bunker,' the intransigents of the dictatorship. He even suggested, in statements to a French newspaper, that "the Balearic Islands could have a statute of autonomy, similar to the one being studied for the Basque Country." Ramiro Pérez-Maura was born in 1934 in Mortera, Cantabria—another of his titles was Count of Mortera—and was also the nephew of Cardinal Herrera Oria, a key figure in the Church at the time. He studied at La Salle, where he met Jesús Aguirre, the future Duke of Alba. He studied Law and then prepared for the diplomatic service exams with Enrique Tierno Galván, later a leader of the Popular Socialist Party and mayor of Madrid. His first posting was Caracas: now, with the way things are going, it would be a destination to think twice about.

Unlike Fraga, Pérez-Maura was not a recycled Francoist, but rather came from the moderate monarchist opposition. He was one of the founders of the liberal-leaning Club 1980. In doing so, he was consistent with the trajectory of his great-grandfather, who had been a member of the Liberal Party before switching to the Conservatives, and who refused to support another dictatorship, that of Primo de Rivera, in the 1920s. Club 1980 was shut down to schedule a lecture by Ramón Tamames, then considered a dangerous leftist—who would have guessed it, given his more recent history?

The Fall of De Meer

These were times of rampant economic crisis and street protests, despite the corresponding repression. Mallorca, the "island of calm," as the magazine observed. Lucas That January of 1976, it had ceased to be so—assuming it ever had been. The political parties, although illegal, were active with the prospect of political change.

The Duke of Maura's predecessor in the Government of the Islands, the far-right Carlos de Meer, handed it to him on a silver platter in the Arias cabinet, facilitating his replacement, by putting his foot in it completely with that workers' strike at the Church of San Miguel, which cost him dearly. That didn't come without consequences. On January 24, De Meer handed over the reins to Pérez-Maura. That afternoon, Antoni Serra, who had been one of the former governor's pet peeves for being a leftist and a Catalan nationalist, was stunned to find him in the basement of the Tous bookstore, which he managed, browsing books. Far-right, yes, but cultured.

The fall of De Meer was a difficult blow for the Francoist hardliners, who until then had held sway in the Canary Islands. To make matters worse, Paulí Buchens, with his clear reformist leanings, became mayor of Palma during those same days. Only the Provincial Council remained as the last bastion of the dictatorship's core principles.

The new governor described himself to the press as "liberal and democratic." Quite audacious at the time, even though the Franco regime—still with its structure intact—defined itself as "organic democracy." He announced a special regime for the Balearic Islands as one of his priorities, a proposal that was already under consideration. In fact, he appointed working groups to study it. But you know how we operate in these matters—we did manage to stay calm about that: everything changed rapidly in just a few months, and soon the talk was no longer of a special regime but of autonomy.

The role that fell to Pérez-Maura was not easy. New winds of reform were blowing, yes, but in which direction? Probably not even Madrid had a clear answer. Supposedly liberalizing measures alternated with episodes of old-school repression. The clandestine opposition wanted nothing to do with this proposed reform and demanded a 'democratic rupture': freedom, amnesty, and a statute of autonomy. Drawing a parallel with what had happened half a century earlier, the dictatorship had given way to the 'dictatova' (a derogatory term for a corrupt, often violent, regime). But not yet within the democratic system.

From expelled from the party to senator

Given this situation, the Duke's administration was, like the song, a series of one step forward and one step back. The repression didn't reach the extremes of De Meer, who even banned a classical music concert. Even so, a good number of vetoes followed: a lecture by the leftist Antoni Tarabini in Ibiza and another by the Christian Democrat Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez in Inca, the presentation of a book by Nicolás Sartorius in Palma, and a recital by Raimon—with good reason: because, to each their own, people were similar. Things got to such a point that Josep Melià—a member of the Cortes, still under Franco's regime but openly committed to democracy—expressed his protest to the governor.

The replacement of Arias Navarro by Adolfo Suárez in early July 1976 quickly transformed the situation. It soon became clear that the dismantling of the dictatorship was a genuine effort. While Pérez-Maura was visiting a town hall, he received a call from the new minister, Rodolfo Martín Villa. He asked if Pérez-Maura was considering running in the upcoming elections. Pérez-Maura replied in the affirmative.

This could never be. You were either out on the street advertising the merchandise or you were behind the shop counter. Except for Suárez himself, who remained at the head of the state government and at the same time ran in the elections just a few months later, as the lead candidate for Unió de Centre Democràtic, the coalition hastily formed as his platform.

In August, Pérez-Maura was replaced by a new governor, Manuel Martín Arias. Daily of Mallorca He expressed his disagreement—at last: one could now criticize the government without fear of reprisal—and highlighted the Duke's role as "manager of the democratizing line," using the headline 'Maura, yes!'. This was the exact opposite of the 'Maura, no!' to which his great-grandfather had been subjected when practically the entire national political spectrum turned against him in the wake of the Tragic Week of 1909. That same year, 1976, the Liberal Party was formed—parties would soon be legal—and Pérez-Maura was one of its representatives in the Balearic Islands, along with the reformist councilors from the Palma City Council, Miquel Duran and Jordi Dezcallar. However, a new, and in this case very significant, dilemma soon arose. The various centrist parties—what was called the "alphabet soup"—joined the new coalition, the UCD. But the state leadership of the Liberals refused to join: Duran and Pérez-Maura were expelled from the party. Both ran in the June 1977 elections. Duran was elected deputy for the Balearic Islands and Pérez-Maura, senator for Mallorca, with the spectacular figure of 132,803 votes, the second most voted, only behind Jeroni Albertí, who would become the party leader. The following year, the General Inter-Island Council, the pre-autonomy institution, was established, and the former governor became Minister of Transport and Communications. The UCD eventually disintegrated after five years leading the national government, and Pérez-Maura, like so many who had brief political careers during those years, returned to his work: diplomacy. He was ambassador to South Korea, Jamaica, and Luxembourg and died in Madrid in 2001. His widow, Lucía de la Peña, became well-known ten years ago for publicly confronting Pedro Sánchez: she was asking for money for Cáritas (a Catholic charity) and he didn't pay much attention. "You don't give money to Cáritas and then you expect people to vote for you," the duchess told him. Politics and the Maura family have been intertwined for over a century.

Information prepared from texts by Miquel Payeras, David Ginard, Alfonso Pérez-Maura y de la Peña, Bartomeu Canyelles and Francisca Vidal, Antoni Marimon Riutort and Mauricio Cuesta Labernia, Miquel Duran Pastor and Joan López Casasnovas, the memoirs of Miquel Rosselló and Antoni Living memory and Political Mallorcanism (1936-2024), Daily of Mallorca and an interview by Josep Maria Aguiló with Ramiro Pérez-Maura in Latest News.