The Emeritus – that’s to say King Juan Carlos I – was in Spain this weekend, boating in the resort town of Sanxenxo, thirty kilometres from the provincial capital of Pontevedra.
The timing is just before the municipal and some regional elections which are due to commence their inexorable grind towards May 28th. There will be posters.
While there has never been a question asked in any survey of opinion, the case is that many Spaniards would describe themselves as ‘Republicans’ which – unlike the American variety – is something closer to the left than to the right. Here, the Republicans lost the civil war against the Nationalists back in 1939. Following the lengthy rule of the Generalísimo, Spain was finally presented in 1975 with a new head of state: a handsome, modern and personable king – the grandson of Alfonso XIII, who had been dethroned at the onset of La Segunda República back in 1931.
It must be hard being a
Royal, expected to set an example to the rest of us; and few of them seem to fulfil
the obligation as hoped (and expected). Juan Carlos himself eventually lost his
overwhelming popular support following a series of scandals and he was obliged to
abdicate to be shortly afterwards all-but-exiled to Abu Dhabi in what might be
considered as ‘in disgrace’.
His son Felipe VI has been most careful to sail a different course and, among his virtues, he steadfastly avoids the company of his sire beyond the coincidence of an occasional royal funeral.
Now we read that the Emeritus
is looking to buy a home in the port where he keeps his sailing
boat and joining all the scheduled regattas, while maintaining his residence abroad
as a tax exile.
This will not help the royalist cause.
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