Popular Front (Spain)
The Frente Popular ( Spanish for "Popular Front" ) was a of left and liberal politicians supported electoral coalition that formed in the final stages of the Second Spanish Republic at the elections at the beginning of 1936. Modelled on the previously founded in Popular Front alliance in France, which had formed there against right-wing parties.
After President Niceto Alcalá Zamora Spain's parliament, the Cortes, had dissolved and new elections scheduled for 16 February 1936, it came on 15 January for the formation of the Popular Front.
It consisted essentially the moderate Republicans of Izquierda Republicana and the Unión Republicana, the socialists of the PSOE and the UGT, the communists of the PCE and the left communists of the POUM. It was supported also by the Catalan ERC and the anarchists of the CNT / FAI; latter waived for the first time to a call for a boycott.
The members of the Popular Front understood their alliance as a defense of "national interests of the Republic " against the " reaction " in the country and agreed on a series of measures designed to strengthen the foundations of the Republic. The other policy statements were rather moderate and kept at a core statements of the Republican party, for example, the nationalization of land and the introduction of unemployment insurance issued a denial.
In the elections the Popular Front won by a narrow margin against the Frente Nacional ( " National Front " ) of the right, which amounted to around 150,000 votes. The political center was meaningless with only 500,000 votes. As in Spain at that time was a majority vote, the election winner in the Parliament, however, was able to achieve a majority of 263 of the 473 seats. Although the mutual accusation local irregularities was raised, which was not an exceptional phenomenon in the unstable democratic system of that time, there's a whole - also from the perspective of today's research - no doubt that the Popular Front emerged as a concise but clear winner of the elections. The new parliamentary majority, then sat up a committee, which should be used to review the election results. However, this checked only irregularities in electoral districts, where had won the Frente Nacional candidate or center. However, this and the fact that an official election result was never published, the opponents of the Popular Front gave room to doubt the election results.
The new government - first under Manuel Azaña, after his election as president in May Santiago Casares Quiroga then - was formed exclusively from the ranks of the Republican party, but could be based on the toleration of the other Popular Front parties. But it also resulted in the weakness of the governing parties, the order could not recover against the will of its allies, which would have required an intervention against the militant parts of the followers just this alliance partner.
Meanwhile intensified throughout the country against the backdrop of an economic crisis, the decades of social and political confrontation that ultimately, in July led to a military coup and then in the Spanish Civil War.