«Liberals with Fraga»: from Liberal Union (UL) to Liberal Party (PL)

Abstract

When the elections of 1982 arrived, Manuel Fraga and People’s Alliance (AP) began their search of a non-socialist «natural majority» in which they had the collaboration of the Christian Democrats. The great absentees of that initial coalition were the Liberals, reason why Fraga created from the own AP that liberal group that it needed to its coalition. This is how Liberal Union (UL) emerged, later re-founded as Liberal Party (PL). These pro-Fraga liberals became the main representatives of Spanish neoliberalism. Their dependence of AP, that had created them for purely instrumental purposes, condemned them to a complex trajectory –with the lack of a real independent project and absence of stable leaderships– that only surpassed with the re-foundation of the political right.