When Felipe Gonzalez Marquez's Socialists swept to power in 1982, a jubilant crowd of 4,000 supporters held a raucous celebration outside the party's election headquarters in Madrid. Fearing a violent rightist reaction, Gonzalez urged his supporters to keep cool, saying, "We don't want any saviors with machine guns." Some went to bed that night fearing that the army might try to seize power.
Last week, when the Socialists handily won a second term in office, the scene was almost tranquil. Fewer than 200 supporters gathered outside the same election headquarters in the Palace Hotel, and only one, a woman clutching a...
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