If there is one moment that has come to epitomise the political transition in Spain, it is the failed coup d’état of 1981. On the afternoon of 23 February, during the investiture vote of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as President of the Spanish government, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero burst into the chambers of the Spanish Congress with a small group of civil guards armed with submachine guns. Holding the politicians present hostage, along with the staff and journalists covering the event, Tejero remained in the building throughout the evening waiting for the military support he had been promised. After approximately 18 hours, when it became clear that his coup lacked the necessary political and military backing, he was finally persuaded to surrender. While the interpretation of this event has been varied, its outcome has generally been understood as evidence that Spain had finally overcome its authoritarian past and was firmly set on its path to democracy. The victory of the socialist PSOE in the general election later the same year was seen as the official arrival of democracy in Spain.

The ‘tejerazo’, as the coup was termed colloquially, gave a face to the deep-seated troubles that beset the political transformation taking place in Spain in the years following the death of Francisco Franco. At the time, neither end of the newly visible political spectrum seemed happy with the way that ‘democracy’ was being implemented in the country. The day of the coup, 23 February, later became known as the ‘23-F’, coined by the only civilian jailed after the coup, Juan García Carrés. This failed uprising, which kept the entire country awake for a night, was adopted into the popular culture as evidence that Spain was truly no longer the same country as the one governed by Franco. Confirmation of this transformation came in the form of the televised speech of King Juan Carlos, who commanded the military to step down and vehemently denied that he had in any way desired or authorised the coup. This intervention was interpreted as a decisive moment in Spanish politics and a redeeming moment for a monarch whose power, forged under the dictatorship, was one of the lasting legacies of the Franco regime.