Spanish conservatives, Nelson Mandela and Franco

This 1994 video from South Africa is called Nelson Mandela speech after election as President.

By James Bloodworth in Britain:

Spanish Popular Party ‘laments’ Mandela’s passing but votes against statue in favour of Franco

December 9, 2013

Amidst the general global outpouring of grief last week at the passing of Nelson Mandela, Spain’s ruling Popular Party lamented the loss of Mandela on its Twitter account.

‘The Popular Party mourn the loss of Nelson Mandela’, the Tweet on Thursday read (see below).

And yet a few months earlier in July, while Mandela was still alive, albeit seriously ill, the right-wing Popular Party voted against naming a street after Madiba. Instead, the party voted for the street in question to retain its name – ‘July 18′ in honour of the day Spain’s former dictator General Franco who rose against the Republic on that day in 1936.

So, contrary to the title, the Partido Popular hypocrisy is not about a statue, but about a street.

During 40 years of dictatorship, around 35,000 people are believed to have died at the hands of Franco’s regime, without trial or after courts martial.

Even if one would add to this “around 35,000 people” estimate the death sentences by the Franco-dictatorship-appointed civilian courts, this looks like a conservative estimate.

Opposing Mandela while he is alive and expressing cringeing piety when he is dead. Now who does that remind you of?

Britain: Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) continues to stake its claim as the exemplar of the ‘Nasty Party’ – with its director of communications branding Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” a day after he died: here.

Related articles

• Free Mandela: the song that danced its way into history (abc.net.au)
• A Giant Walked Among Us (mikeliving.wordpress.com)
• Nelson Mandela’s first TV interview (itv.com)