For the first time, former Spanish Civil Guard lieutenant colonel Antonio Tejero Molina has placed the then-king, Juan Carlos I, as the mastermind of the attempted coup d'état that took place in Spain on February 23rd, 1981. There was little doubt that this had really been the case, in the same way, as the government of Felipe González was behind the murders of the GAL death squad, but it is very good that the active protagonist of that coup attempt has named a name and placed him at the apex of the most anti-democratic manoeuvre of Spain's much-vaunted political transition: whenever we learn something new about that era, it becomes less and less of the exemplary process that they wanted to present us with at the time.
The coup-leader-in-chief is now comfortably in exile in the United Arab Emirates, living as he pleases and paying the toll for the excesses he committed - political, financial and personal. In fact, only his former lover, the German princess and businessperson Corinna Larsen, has tried to complicate his life judicially in the United Kingdom, without her actions having prospered. He is not where he is as the result of a judicial or political investigation in Spain, since a misunderstood status of inviolability, according to Article 56.3 of the Spanish Constitution, confers impunity before the laws, whether criminal, civil or administrative.
And thus it is increasingly understood how the so-called regime of '78 - the year that the current constitution was passed - closes ranks and works together to defend itself. There are no right-wingers or left-wingers, but rather, characters who take advantage of a very special situation and who act with absolute judicial immunity. Everything becomes time-barred, and the investigation of what is not time-barred is postponed until it is, and then no explanations have to be given to the courts. They protect one another and in the end they all feel they benefit from a regime that protects them. It's a perfect square. A real win-win.
And if the scandal even goes beyond what public opinion can take, the monarchy is exposed and its treachery is impossible to hide, the central token in the game is substituted, dropped into a golden exile in the Emirates, and nothing happens. The king is dead, long live the king. The story is modified, he is advised to disappear from his formal role and a younger figure takes his place. The figure of head of state is out of danger and the wheel starts turning again. Javier Cercas can already change his story of Anatomy of an instant, for which he won Spain's National Narrative Prize in 2010, and which praises Juan Carlos I for his role in the so-called 23-F. A coup that "of course the king stopped", according to the writer's explanation.
Something should begin to change with the investiture that Pedro Sánchez is negotiating with the Catalan pro-independence parties and that should open up something very close to a new political situation, which will not only address the amnesty and the end of repression, but will front up to issues, such as the judicial one, which have been impossible to tackle since 1977. Maybe this time it is possible.