Spanish

Real Madrid and Barcelona offer messages of support following train crash as Spanish football orders Copa postponement.

Spain’s national football federation has postponed all 24 Copa del Rey games scheduled for Wednesday because of a train accident that killed at least 30 people in the country’s central region.

About 80 people were injured and the death toll could rise, authorities said, after a high-speed train slammed into the rear of another one that had stopped on the track.

“Shocked by the tragic train accident,” the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) said.

It said it ordered the postponement of the games “in solidarity with the victims”.

“The entire Spanish football community stands united in grief over this tragedy and has made itself available to the authorities to assist the victims of this devastating accident,” RFEF added.

It said it would later provide a revised tournament schedule. First-round games on Thursday have not been postponed. Games were played on Tuesday as well.

The Spanish league has not announced any postponements for the weekend’s games.

Among Wednesday’s games to be postponed were Navalcarnero against Real Betis, Salamanca against Celta Vigo and Tavernes against Valencia.

Several Spanish football clubs expressed their condolences and solidarity following the incident.

“The club wishes to convey its support and solidarity to the families and friends of the victims and to wish all those injured a speedy recovery,” FC Barcelona said on social media.

Real Madrid also offered condolences and in a statement said the club shared “in the grief of everyone impacted during these moments of profound sadness”.

Sevilla FC took a moment of silence ahead of their training on Wednesday and cancelled manager Luis Garcia Plaza’s press conference, which was scheduled for Wednesday ahead of their match against Sporting de Hortaleza.

Nithya Raman slowly recited the start of her handwritten message to Angelenos.

Llegué de la India con mi madre a los seis años. Sé lo que cuesta empezar de nuevo.

I came from India with my mother when I was 6. I know what it takes to start over.

The mayoral hopeful was in the green room of Univision’s Westchester studios on Thursday, waiting for an interview with anchor Guad Venegas. He would ask each question in both English and Spanish, and Raman could respond in English.

But she hoped to do better than that.

Since the start of her campaign, Raman has sprinkled Spanglish into her speeches and sometimes offered whole sentences in softly accented, lightly stilted Spanish. It’s part of an effort to win over Latinos, nearly half the city’s population and a crucial swing vote , with less than a week to go before election day.

“Can you say the whole thing for me?” Raman asked Lauren Perez-Rangel, her Latino outreach senior director, who read the full message in effortless Spanish. Raman repeated it word for word, accent for accent, with no flubs or pauses.

“You got it!” Perez-Rangel told her boss.

“I hope,” Raman replied.

It was showtime.

Raman, who serves on the L.A. City Council, grinned when someone said “me vale madre” — I don’t give a damn — on the walk to the studio. She cracked in English, “I doubt that’s true!” when I told an Univision producer in Spanish that no one likes my work.

A cameraman proclaimed “¡Muy bien!” when Raman rattled off an “uno, dos, tres” mic check. Venegas responded in English, “It’s always like that” to Raman’s comment in Spanish that her pronunciation is better than her comprehension.

During the interview, Raman raised her eyebrows when Venegas talked about streets filled with “basura,” the word for “trash” that became an insulting pun on Bass’ name hurled by then-candidate Spencer Pratt during the primary. Raman answered questions in English even when Venegas only asked them in Spanish, fully understanding what he said. And she kept saying “sí” to acknowledge Venegas’ points, as a native speaker would.

She never got a chance to read her Spanish-language statement, but that was OK. I saw enough to know that while she isn’t going to write the next “Don Quixote,” she isn’t limited to ordering at Casa Vega.

Supporters have praised her efforts en español. Critics dismiss them as pandering. I see something more interesting at work.

Raman spoke Tamil and Malayalam in India before moving to the U.S. as a child. If she wins, she would be the first immigrant mayor since Canadian-born Frank Shaw in the 1930s. She’d also be the first mayor whose native tongue wasn’t English since Bernard Cohn, who grew up speaking German in Prussia and served as mayor for two weeks in 1878.

Having a non-native English speaker in charge of a world capital such as L.A. — and one who wants to express herself in the city’s second tongue — wouldn’t just be symbolic. A person who’s earnest about learning a language is forever trying to decipher something new, failing far more often than succeeding in the early going — yet always working to master the task.

Isn’t that what we want from any politician, especially in a city where 56% of residents live in a household that speaks a language other than English?

Los Angeles mayoral candidate and city councilmember Nithya Raman prepares to speak at a “Latinos Con Raman” rally at La Cita Bar in downtown Los Angeles on Sept. 18.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Familiarity with Spanish has become a prerequisite for L.A. mayors. Antonio Villaraigosa famously took classes to improve his assimilated Spanish. Eric Garcetti described his fluency as “good community meeting Spanish” and often delivered remarks in Spanish. Bass, who was married to a Chicano and treats her ex-husband’s children as her own, isn’t fluent but has a robust Spanish-language outreach for her campaign, complete with ads, mailers and websites.

For Raman, though, learning Spanish isn’t just a way to reach out to constituents. It’s a reminder of “what it means to grapple with a bureaucracy that wasn’t intended for you.”

We spoke outside Univision’s studios after her interview. I asked to speak about her experience with Spanish as a way to show a private side of her to Angelenos. (I had asked Bass to sit down with me and talk about food. The interview was initially scheduled, then campaign spokesperson Alex Stack said it was canceled so Bass could attend a news conference assailing Raman for saying that former LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates was a “gold standard” in protecting immigrants. Bass’ campaign didn’t reschedule the interview and didn’t provide comment on her Spanish skills in time for publication.)

In 2022, Raman co-authored a motion that introduced live Spanish translation services at city council committee meetings. She wants the city to research whether it can provide the information that’s being lost as the Trump administration increasingly deletes Spanish-language versions of federal websites.

“You have to show them that you’re trying,” Raman told me. “And even if you go out there, and you speak broken Spanish, and you mess it up, and you don’t conjugate it properly, and you get all the endings wrong — ‘a’ versus ‘o’ — the fact that you show up and you say it, and you try it in Spanish, means something to the people that I’ve been talking to.”

Her Spanish journey began with four years of classes at a suburban Boston high school. She chose Spanish instead of French because she felt it “would be more useful for me in the world.”

Raman forgot most of it while attending Harvard and MIT but started practicing with her brother, a Spanish major at UCLA, when she moved to L.A. 13 years ago. She read bilingual books for beginners and streamed shows such asNetflix’s dark comedy “La Casa de las Flores” (“The House of Flowers”) and podcasts such as “Chill Spanish.”

Those lessons have happened “pretty regularly” since she joined the city council in 2020, Raman said, although she scaled back once the mayoral campaign intensified.

I wondered what languages are spoken in her household. Her husband, whose Tamil-speaking parents are immigrants from India, only speaks English. Her twin 10-year-olds “can kind of follow along” when she speaks to her parents in Tamil, but she is no longer fluent in Malayalam.

“I have friends like who speak a different language, and they’re, like, religious about speaking it to their children,” Raman said. While she would love for her children to learn other languages, “life is too stressful trying to make every moment of your time with your family into almost a chore.”

I asked about the pandering charge. Throwing out Spanish phrases in an effort to appeal to Latinos is a political cliché as weak salsa as eating tacos in East L.A. or cruising in a lowrider.

Raman shook her head.

“To try and communicate to people in the language that they speak doesn’t feel like pandering. It feels like what the city should do,” she said. “Why shouldn’t elected representatives here also speak Spanish, or do their best to communicate to people in their language?

“If there was a lot of Tamil speakers here,” Raman continued, “I would appreciate that for me and for my family and for my grandparents.”

Mayor Karen Bass speaks during the “Latinos Con Bass” campaign at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026 in Los Angeles.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

Then I tested her Spanish.

Had she heard of one of my favorite words: convenenciero? Someone who goes with what will help them and doesn’t stand for anything but themselves. Haters have never outright called Raman a convenenciera, I said, but that’s what they’re insinuating in almost every other sentence.

In fairness, most politicians have a bit of convenenciero in them.

“People say, ‘She doesn’t stand for anything,’ but people also criticize me for being ideological, so which is it?” Raman calmly responded. “I try and learn. And I don’t come and say, ‘I know what you want.’ I say, ‘I’m trying to learn what you want, and I want to make the city work for you. How can I make it work?’”

So you’re not a convenenciera?

“I don’t feel that,” Raman said, repeating the phrase two more times.

I told her I’d ask three questions in Spanish. First: how was she doing?

“Bien. Un poco nervioso.”

“Poca nerviosa,” I corrected. A bit nervous. She thanked me for correcting her and said, “Sí, sí, nerviosa.”

What was she doing to try and relax during this campaign?

“Yo quiero estar con mi familia. Mis hijos …” I want to be with my family. My children …

She thought about the right phrase.

“… son mi vida.” Are my life.

What’s a word she loves in Spanish?

Perez-Rangel suggested chisme — gossip.

“I do like chisme!” Raman said with a laugh. But that wasn’t it.

“I like the word tomar [to take] and how many different meanings it has,” she said in English, then rattled off definitions and tenses in Spanish. Tomar bebidas. Tomar su tiempo.

“Tomar City Hall?” I asked.

She laughed again and said something that needs no translation: “Yes.”

A NEW attraction with an enormous lagoon and bright white sands is set to open a few hours from the UK.

Called Alovera Beach, it’s set to open in summer 2028 and the catch is that it’s nowhere near the coast.

Instead, the company called Crystal Lagoons is hoping to open Europe’s largest man-made beach just outside of Spain’s capital, Madrid.

The project itself that’s 104,000 square metres is being built at the cost of €29million (£24.3million).

At its centre will be a 21,000-square-metre artificial lagoon which will be surrounded by 16,000 square metres of white sand which makes for the perfect sunbathing spot.

The lagoon will be suitable for swimming as well as watersports like kayaking, paddleboarding and aqua fitness classes.

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There will also be children’s attractions, relaxation spaces, food outlets and cafes.

On the sand will be an adults-only beach club with separate lounges to relax in as well as restaurants.

During the summer it’s hoping to hold seasonal events too including concerts, guest celebrations and even business events.

Looking at the details on its website, it looks like entry will be through memberships and daily passes.

Plans for Alovera Beach started back in 2017 and it has just taken a huge step forward with developers signing a formal construction-start document on October 21, 2026.

If all goes to plan, work is set to complete in March 2028 with it opening to the public a few months later in the summer months.

When it does open, the inland beach will be easy for Brits to reach as Alovera is a 45-minute drive from Madrid.

One-way flights are as little as £20 and Brits can get there in less than two and a half hours.

The company has made 1,000 projects across 60 countries including the Evermore Orlando Resort.

It has a range of accommodation including guest rooms and suites to Walt Disney World around two enormous beach areas where visitors can try out kayaking and paddleboarding.

The lagoon here is larger than 25 Olympic-size swimming pools and has has two beach areas.

AS the plane circled in to land in the city of Murcia in south-eastern Spain, we caught our first glimpse of La Manga.

The 13-mile-long strip separates Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon, Mar Menor, and the Mediterranean Sea.

It was as impressive to see from the air as it was to explore on foot, but it was what lay beneath the warm waters on either side of the sandbank that really made our trip.

The beach of Cabo de Palos on the southern cape of La Manga is widely regarded as one of Europe’s best snorkelling hotspots, with protected marine beds and crystal-clear visibility in the shallow bays.

With nothing but an old pair of goggles, my partner Owain and I saw starfish, octopus and an array of colourful reef fish in a small cove under the lighthouse.

The seagrass beds are renowned as one of the biggest breeding grounds for seahorses, and with dive shops and excursions taking off every hour from the harbour, snorkel enthusiasts will be in their element.

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The beach was a ten-minute drive from our hotel, the Grand Hyatt La Manga Club Golf & Spa. And while we could have easily spent every day snorkelling around the reef beds, there was too much else to explore at the 5H resort.

With 11 restaurants on site, we struggled to decide which we enjoyed more out of the red Thai prawn curry and hand-made gyoza dumplings at Asia Restaurant or the Aberdeen Angus steak with truffle mash on The Terrace Grill Steak House.

The latter did come with sunset views over the golf course, though.

But our favourite meal of all came at the hotel’s private beach restaurant, La Cala, which you get to via an on-demand mini-bus service down to the coast via the Calblanque National Park.

Sharing a huge pan of squid ink paella, home-made bread and a bottle of rosé on the terrace overlooking the bay was a highlight of the trip.

Luckily, there were many activities on offer to burn off all our overindulgences.

While the hotel has the biggest and best hotel gym I’ve ever seen, as well as tennis courts, two swimming pools, a football pitch, a cricket centre, bike hire and a spa, the jewel in La Manga Club’s crown is the three 18-hole golf courses that surround it.

Before teeing off, we had a lesson with resort pro Iain Hanna, who helped us work on our swing using analytic equipment before letting us loose on the pristine fairways.

With 325 days of sunshine a year, the resort — which hosted the Spanish Open for five years from 1973 — is a firm favourite for golfers looking for a sunny winter escape.

But even if golf isn’t your thing, the hotel is a good base to explore the Murcia region.

The historic city of Cartagena — known as the “Port of Cultures” — is 30 minutes away.

Its Roman theatre, which was built between 5 and 1 BC and would have seated 6,000 to 7,000 people, was only discovered by accident in 1988 during construction of a new crafts centre.

Entry is via the museum opposite the town hall and costs seven euros per person, and it is a must for the breathtaking views of the city alone.

At the Molinete Archaeological Park, we wandered around the ruins of an old Roman bathhouse and perused the reconstructed painted murals and some of the 300 artefacts found there.

Then it was time for cañas and tapas. We loved La Uva Jumillana, where beers and tapas cost from around 3.20 euros each.

Bodega La Fuente does good pinchos, Las Termas del Pincho is a lively stop for a drink and El Vinagrillo serves more substantial tapas to finish.

Our last stop was the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology, which is free on Sundays.

It covers the city’s maritime history — the port city of Cartagena was once the Carthaginians’ capital in Spain — and displays treasures recovered from Spanish shipwrecks around the world.

Driving back along the palm-tree-lined promenade as the sun set, I decided that with cheap flights, sunny climes and more Roman ruins and artefacts to see than most cities in Europe, this corner of Murcia should be top of any autumn sun list.

BRITS could face hefty fines if caught smoking, or playing loud music at one popular holiday spot.

In some cases, the penalty could be as much as £2,500.

The area of La Laguna in Tenerife, has approved new rules banning smoking, camping, overnight stays and disruptive music on its beaches and natural swimming pools.

The announcement was made on October 7 and has been put in place to protect the coastline.

Under the new rules, beaches within the areas and natural pools are now smoke-free.

It also stops visitors from leaving rubbish behind including soap and shampoo in public showers.

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Unless there’s a a special permitted event, beachgoers are banned from playing loud music or general noise that disturbs those around them.

The new rules also state that there is a ban on camping and overnight stays on the beaches.

Within the area of La Laguna, the coastal areas where these rules have been enforced include Bajamar, Punta del Hidalgo, Jover and La Barranquera.

While there is a maximum fine of €3,000 (£2,500), it does not apply to every beach.

The amount also depends on the offence with those deemed minor having fines of €300 (£254).

In summer 2026, lots of beaches and hotels in Tenerife put rules in place to stop tourists reserving loungers and sand space with a towel.

Tourists could see their belongings confiscated and be fined up to €3,000.

It comes after strict rules were put in place across Spain for summer 2026.

BRITS will get more choice of where to go on holiday next year as TUI has announced eight new routes.

These will take-off from London Gatwick to destinations from sunny Spanish cities to North African islands.

For summer 2027, TUI is adding eight new routes which will contribute to its 17 million seats and 84,000 flights planned for next year.

There will be three new routes to Spain, one of which will be to Seville which is popular for winter sun thanks to its year-round sunshine.

Even in the winter, Seville can experience highs of 18C.

The city has plenty to see like Royal Alcázar of Seville, Seville Cathedral and Plaza de España which is a cobbled square with four bridges over its small river.

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There are also live flamenco performances and Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey suggests heading to El Rinconcillo.

It’s the city’s oldest tapas bar which dates back to 1670 – and you can get huge glasses of wine for as little as £3.

Two other Spanish cities that TUI will fly to in summer 2027 include Santiago de Compostela and Valencia.

One of these will be to the Greek capital of Athens which was recently named the most underrated winter city break in Europe by Time Out.

The city is known for its ancient sites like the Acropolis and plenty of modern neighbourhoods too.

Travel writer Ryan Gray who visited during the winter discovered it was just as good without the hot weather – especially as it had half the crowds.

He added: “I climbed Mars Hill to catch the sunset over the city — an experience that’s usually a shoulder-to-shoulder fight in July, but in winter felt like my own private viewing platform.

Another of TUI’s new routes is to Mytilene (Lesvos) which is on the Greek island of Lesbos.

In the city, visitors can explore Mytilene Castle, stroll around Ermou Street Market and enjoy seafood at the tavernas along the waterfront.

It even has its own Statue of Liberty in the harbour.

TUI will also fly to Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily.

It sits on the northern coast of the country with both sandy and rocky beaches like Mondello Beach and Addaura.

One free attraction is San Domenico Square which is the entrance to La Vucciria a market selling things like food, jewellery and souvenirs.

TUI is also offering a direct route to Tangier in Morocco which sits along the Strait of Gibraltar.

The city itself has plenty to see including its medina, busy souks, and landmarks like the Kasbah and the Caves of Hercules.

The city itself has a blend of cultures; African, French and Spanish.

It has a vibrant café culture thanks to its French influence, tapas culture from Spain.

In the summertime, Tangier sits at around 30C so it’s warm, but still mild enough to explore.

Another route is to Djerba, a large island off Tunisia’s southeastern coast.

It has sandy beaches and for any Star Wars fans, it was the filming location for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – and there are regular tours too.

Head of Sun Travel, Lisa Minot, visited Djerba last year, she said: “Relatively undiscovered by us Brits, Djerba is a great-value option for those looking to explore beyond the Med favourites.

“Sizzling in summer, temperatures remain high all the way through to November and rarely dip below the 20Cs, even in the depths of winter, making it ideal for out-of-season sunshine.”

JET2 is cancelled all UK routes to a popular Spanish island at the end of the month.

The airline has confirmed that flights to La Palma – nicknamed La Isla Bonita or The Beautiful Island – will no longer be going ahead.

Currently only operating from Manchester Airport, the last flight will take off on October 30.

Anyone affected will be offered a full refund or an alternative holiday.

A new route was due to start from London Stansted to La Palma, but this will no longer go ahead.

A spokesperson for Jet2 explained: “As a customer-focused business, we continually review our programme in response to what our customers want, and we will make adjustments where required.

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“This gives us the ability to add flights and holidays in response to demand, and very occasionally we may withdraw them too.

“Following this latest review, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw flights and holidays to La Palma.”

They added that all customers will be contacted, and apologised for the change.

The cancellation comes just six months after the route was launched.

Anyone still wanting to visit the Spanish island can fly there with TUI from London Gatwick.

The island is known for its warm winters and was even said to be similar to Costa Rica.

The Sun’s Natasha Clark recently visited, saying: “I tentatively packed jeans fearing the poor weather forecast and high-teen temperatures were all we were destined for.

“But thankfully they remained at the bottom of the case as the mercury soared to 25C.

“Even in January, temperatures average a balmy 20C and there’s less than 4mm of rain a month, guaranteeing glorious blue skies.”

King Juan Carlos I summons party leaders after the failed 1981 coup. From left to right: Santiago Carrillo (Communist Party), Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún (Defence Minister), Adolfo Suárez (Prime Minister), Juan Carlos I, Felipe González (PSOE) and Manuel Fraga (People’s Alliance, later PP).

(“Gosh, no! Not another hyper-comparative article about two distant political conflicts…” Apologies. We’ll try to make it a fun read).

More often than not, our intellectual circles have felt tempted to look at alien historical episodes in a never-ending search for resolute answers that shed light on our present. In 2023, when Maduro flirted with attacking US-supported Guyana, some revisited the Falklands War as a sign that a serious military incursion would be a fatal mistake that would lead to the dictatorship’s downfall. Then came the road to the 2024 presidential election; many feared (rightfully, in the end) that the country would plunge into the “Nicaragua scenario” if the dictator refused to recognize his defeat. Others momentarily wondered if enough external pressure could give way to a Guatemala-style transfer of power and a weak transition government.

The days of terror seem to be behind us, yet there’s no progressive reformer like Raúl Alfonsín steering the wheel of justice. Instead, Donald Trump gave us the Pizza Hut scenario. Here, Delcy Rodríguez has become the poster girl of the MAGA international franchise. Here, too, US geopolitical ambitions and business interests at times seem to be competing with the need for free elections and a democratic regime.

Is Rodríguez our Mikhail Gorbachev, trying to open the economy and political system just enough while attempting to save the chavista State from outright collapse? What if chavismo is already dead and she’s the Yeltsin of the Caribbean, the feeble leader who will give away the country’s riches to oligarchs in an arbitrary fashion, laying the ground for a new form of autocracy?

Or might Delcy be the chavista version of Adolfo Suárez, the not-so-brilliant and obscure but highly charismatic Francoist insider? Suárez finished the job after a remarkable run, surviving a period of meagre political support, declining approval rates and a coup d’etat that could have killed him. The comparison now sounds like an insult to the Spaniard. Like Gorbachev in today’s Russia, Suárez has become a sort of mythical statesman abroad while Spanish right- and left-wing critics dispute his legacy.

There are genuine similarities between the process currently unfolding in Caracas and the outset of Spain’s democracy, as well as room for gross contrasts. While 2026 has been insane for Venezuelans, Spain exactly fifty years ago was astonishing due to the speed at which Suárez acted in unilaterally dismantling the regime from within the regime. The dictator was finally gone, and as soon as he had the chance, the new King ordered a politician without strong ideological convictions to establish a full parliamentary democracy.

Suárez took office in June 1976. The Law for Political Reform, meant to pave the way for a new democratic legislature (with the King acting as a key enforcer), was through six months later. Spain held general elections within a year. That was just the start. What followed was a sequence full of the raw materials that tend to feed these history-making episodes: secret meetings and grand bargains between rivals and strange bedfellows, journalists acting like hinges, political violence, and leaders who soon become overwhelmed by their own decisions and actions.

How the transition worked out

When scholars praise the atmosphere of consensus that defined Spain in the 1970s, they generally speak of the close cooperation between regime reformers and opposition moderates in devising broad agreements that fastened democracy, fundamental rights and regional autonomy with the recognition of the monarchy. In doing so, these figures refused to address legal and moral responsibilities for the violence left by the Civil War and four decades of military rule (more on this later).

The spirit of the Transición is best encapsulated by the political partnership between Suárez and Santiago Carrillo, leader of the Communist Party (PCE) and the most prominent figure in a scattered opposition. Much like María Corina Machado this year, Carrillo was a key veto player in the transition’s inception. Suárez had the power; democracy just couldn’t be without the legitimacy carried by Francoism’s utmost rival. The government legalized the PCE only after it abandoned Marxist-Leninist doctrine and Republican (“anti-Spain”) symbols. As Javier Cercas recounts in the brilliant Anatomy of a Moment, the duo protected each other’s backs amid hardline pressures, in a climate of growing economic hardship and political violence where ETA and Far Right violence threatened to destabilize their project.

In Spain’s first elections since 1936, Suárez won and the renewed PSOE of a young Felipe González managed to eclipse the old-looking communists. Once the new democratic parliament was settled, Suárez and representatives from major parties signed the Moncloa Pacts, then framed as a national agreement to save the economy. Parallels with Venezuela’s Puntofijo Pact are there: the political class came together on monetary policy and wage regulation; welfare and public spending; and fundamental freedoms for citizens, workers and members of the press. An amnesty for political prisoners followed. In 1978, Spanish voters overwhelmingly voted to approve a new consensus constitution.

As is only natural during these processes, the position of Suárez before Francoist remnants in the State became untenable. Time exposed the true nature of his goals: he eventually crossed all the red lines of the inmovilistas, wiping out Franco’s ultra-conservative and nationalist institutions. Far Right groups, elites, the military and even newspapers plotted to jeopardize the transition and restrain its main characters. However, much of the groundwork for political action and breakthroughs was laid by domestic and outside backers who had an unequivocal pro-democracy stance.

In the Francois legislature, King Juan Carlos appointed his personal tutor and advisor, Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, as president. In the diplomatic arena, regional leaders and international actors favored Spain’s democratization and European integration. Willy Brandt, Francois Mitterrand and even Carlos Andrés Pérez encouraged PSOE’s social-democratic turn and the rise of González. Meanwhile, Carrillo had the endorsement of fellow Eurocommunists that had broken with the Soviet Union.

However, royal and international support were neither constant nor salient enough in the Spanish case. Domestic variables and the consequences of political opening made Suárez grow weaker in 1979, and his government could have fallen apart. In Venezuela, where the level of tutelage in place is more decisive than in Spain back then, the approach of the United States remains gradual and its supervision restrictive for opposition actors. The speed of reforms also seems to be contingent on the diverse interests of the Trump administration. Unlike in Spain at this stage, elections don’t appear to be around the corner, and new policies and initiatives are either limited in scope or yet to show results.

The transition’s key omissions

When comparing the Spanish transition with the Venezuelan process, significant details reveal mistakes whose lessons should serve to prevent their repetition. The transitional justice model, the control of the security forces, and the polarization that affects public opinion after decades, are some of the aspects that can be adjusted to learn from what Spain did well. However, we must keep our eyes open regarding the issues left unresolved.

Six years after Franco’s death and following many important reforms, the Spanish government did not have control of its security apparatus. As a result, a group of Guardias Civiles led by Antonio Tejero, stormed the Congress of Deputies on February 23, 1981, taking Suárez, Carrillo and the entire government hostage while tanks occupied the city of Valencia. The coup failed, but it became clear that the nascent democracy was fragile and that military, police and political elements were able to undermine it. Just like Venezuela in the early sixties.

A change in government, even one negotiated and backed by the US, does not guarantee control over the Venezuelan armed forces. During the transition process, the loyalty of the military must be built and put to the test. There is no guarantee that Venezuela will not experience an episode like Spain’s 23-F; the only way to ensure otherwise is to include representatives of the military high command at the negotiating table from the very beginning.

Then we have the famous Pact of Forgetting. As the opposition basically got everything it wanted, la Transición did not establish any special justice mechanisms. Reconciliation was built on a pacto del olvido, an implicit agreement between regime reformers and a large part of the opposition that consisted of not judging the past, not establishing truth commissions, and adhering to a logic of equivalency between the Two Spains: the Republican Left and the Nationalist Right, the losers and the winners of the Civil War.

The “pact of forgetting” is far from what we Venezuelans aspire to. The victims of Francoism were unable to access mechanisms for reparations during the first 25 years of democracy. Later, the Ley de Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory Law, LMH) and the Ley de Memoria Democrática (Democratic Memory Law, LMD) were enacted to fill that void. The reality is that justice came too late, was biased, and failed to meet international standards on truth, memory, and non-repetition.

One only needs to take a close look at the 1977 Amnesty Law. It passed almost unanimously; its original intent was a genuine desire to bring closure. However, the same law granted amnesty to those who were politically persecuted as well as to “authorities, civil servants, and law enforcement officers” for violations against the rights of Spanish citizens. To an extent, these are the same flaws that have been criticized in the Venezuelan amnesty law enacted in January 2026.

Forgetting and silence created wounds in Spain that were not fully healed and vulnerable to political manipulation throughout this century. A 2008 study found that 55.7% of those surveyed stated that the victims of the dictatorship had not received the recognition they deserved. That sense of injustice has fueled the narrative promoted by the Spanish Left that the transition was a “deal” between elites rather than a pacted rupture with the regime.

Venezuela’s amnesty law bears the same risk and exacerbates it by ordering the destruction of records and criminal histories. Erasing the evidence that will one day be needed to reconstruct the patterns of repression is the opposite of reconciliation. The construction of memory is the only thing that can guarantee that in 2050, Venezuelans will not be having the same disputes that Spain continues to have about Franco. For our process to move toward transformation, we must establish special justice mechanisms that include both reparations and forgiveness. Without this, at best, the next generations will be prone to forgetting.

Coming to terms with post-chavismo

It’s important to make a clarification regarding our case. Today, chavismo is not a force that polarizes the country, capable of winning elections like Suárez did, but a political elite that faces widespread rejection. That does not mean it will disappear from the political landscape. On the contrary, the mere fact that chavismo continues to rule may hint that it will remain part of public life. Eventually, the heirs of chavismo could try to reframe the legacy of Chávez, “saving” him from the discredit brought on by Maduro-era atrocities. The Maduro-Flores faction and a few other figures will likely be erased from chavismo’s new narratives. They will be portrayed as a deviation from chavismo’s original ideas. They will try to bring in new faces, and perhaps Diosdado Cabello will hand over the PSUV to some new figure, such as Héctor Rodríguez and a crop of young, “converted democrats.”

Yet the suffering caused by the chavista project cannot be so easily erased from the memories of millions of Venezuelans who endured hunger, exile, repression and imprisonment.

The wounds that remain fresh among Venezuelans can be as deep as those borne by the older generations in Spain, who faced the destruction and trauma of armed conflict. Like Franco, Chávez and Maduro spent two decades trying to build a “new man” through the military and partisan occupation of public life. However, the nature of the crimes and mismanagement in 21st-century Venezuela is different from that in Francoist Spain, where thousands of dissidents were systematically persecuted and killed. Like in Cuba and the USSR, economic and social devastation has been so severe that it led to mass starvation and exodus. Our remaining task and the lesson learned from what was lacking in the Spanish transition, is to build a historical memory focused on ensuring that anything resembling that does not happen again, and that whoever wants to enter the political arena can do so according to the rules of democracy.

Bonus: Delcy vs. Suárez

Adolfo Suárez became prime minister in 1976, having emerged from the very structures of Francoism and State-owned media. He was certainly not a reformer, much less a democrat until Juan Carlos appointed him to lead the transition. Suárez eventually acted on his own volition, seeing the process through to the end. Delcy, as Maduro’s “Super Minister” and his last vice president, has been a far more prominent figure in the chavista State, and also more deeply involved with the repressive apparatus than Suárez was, as UN reports can attest). In the case of Delcy, US military intervention has pushed her to change certain policies, cool down repression and engage with a sector of the opposition, part of a strategy for political survival where her regime needs to balance Washington’s demands with avoiding chavismo’s downfall. That has nothing to do with a “democratic” conversion.

The comparison is still vague, but Venezuelan historians can re-assess if this process leads to its much-needed destination.

Timeline (optional read)

1973: A decrepit Franco steps down as PM, separating the headship of state and the presidency of government for the first time. He names his loyal right-hand man, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, as Prime Minister, with jurist Torcuato Fernández-Miranda as Deputy PM and conservative Carlos Arias Navarro at Interior. The global oil shock strikes Spain, ending fifteen years of economic boom (the Spanish Miracle) and unleashing severe inflation. In December, ETA assassinates Carrero Blanco in Madrid. Arias Navarro succeeds him with the backing of Franco’s family.

1974: Knowing that Franco’s death was imminent, the regime starts to split between moderates and hardliners while ETA consolidates as a lethal enemy of Madrid. Arias Navarro promises freedom of association, but under pressure from hardliners, the proposal ends up being a sham. The opposition favours gradual reform away from Francoism. European leaders encourage PSOE’s social-democratic turn, appointing a young Felipe González as Secretary General. Communist Party (PCE) leader Santiago Carrillo and other exiled figures call for a peaceful, democratic rupture with the regime.

1975: Franco dies in November. King Juan Carlos I is crowned head of state and reinstates Arias Navarro as PM, maintaining an impossible cabinet of both regime hardliners and moderate reformers like Manuel Fraga. ETA and left-wing terror groups step up attacks, while public strikes and protests demand amnesty and democracy. González enters Spain; Carrillo remains abroad.

1976: Arias Navarro’s sluggish reforms cause political deadlock and social unrest. Pressured by the King, he resigns in July. Juan Carlos appoints Fernández-Miranda as President of the Cortes and Torcuato’s former pupil, Adolfo Suárez, as PM. Suárez promises elections for 1977 and skilfully passes the Law for Political Reform through the Francoist parliament, dismantling the regime from within. Suárez tries to build democratic credibility by engaging with González. The more prominent Carrillo remains sidelined, leading the Communists from clandestinity, until he forces the regime to briefly arrest and release him.

1977: Carrillo and Suárez negotiate a pact in person. Suárez legalizes trade unions and, in a risky move during Holy Week, legalizes Carrillo’s PCE. The Communists abandon its Marxist-Leninist doctrine and traditional Republican symbols. In June, Spain holds its first free general election since 1936: Suárez’s UCD wins, closely followed by the renewed PSOE of González. Major parties sign the Moncloa Pacts to stabilize the economy. An Amnesty Law releases political prisoners.

1978: Parliamentary committees draft a consensus constitution guaranteeing fundamental rights, regional autonomy, and a constitutional monarchy. In December, Spanish voters overwhelmingly approve the new Constitution in a national referendum, formally ending the Francoist State and establishing Spain as a modern parliamentary democracy. The government discovers that some security officials are plotting a coup against Suárez, including Guardia Civil Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, but the main conspirators receive minor penalties.

1979: Spain holds its first elections under the new Constitution: UCD wins again but fails to secure an absolute majority. Regional autonomy statutes pass in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Economic trouble, internal UCD infighting, and rising ETA violence create growing political instability and unrest within the military.

1980: Suárez faces worsening economic crises, mounting regional tensions, and a vote of no confidence tabled by the PSOE. Suárez survives the vote, but his authority inside the UCD collapses as cabinet ministers and faction leaders publicly break ranks, making his government increasingly untenable.

1981: Exhausted by political crisis and plots, Suárez resigns in January. During the parliamentary vote to appoint Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as his successor on February 23, Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero leads an attempted military coup (23-F). King Juan Carlos rejects the coup on national television, securing army loyalty and saving the young democracy.

1982: Calvo-Sotelo navigates Spain into NATO despite widespread public opposition. Disintegrating from internal factionalism, the ruling UCD collapses. In the October general elections, Felipe González leads the PSOE to a historic landslide victory, marking the first peaceful transfer of power to a left-wing government and consolidating Spanish democracy.

1983: The newly inaugurated PSOE government launches major economic restructuring and industrial modernization plans to prepare Spain for European integration. Simultaneously, the State initiates decentralisation by establishing the final Autonomous Communities, completing Spain’s territorial map under the 1978 Constitution.

The minuscule yet distinctly humanoid figure of a fairy flaps its wings as it flies into the ancient ruins of a bygone kingdom. Guiding a young heroine to meet a mysterious faun, for a moment, the fantastical creature looks as though it might cross the threshold of the screen.

It is in that instant that Guillermo del Toro — wearing 3D glasses while sitting at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ imposing David Geffen Theater for a tech check — chuckles with pride as if to say, “Look at that.” Later that night, almost 1,000 fans were transported into his entrancing 2006 masterwork, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” (a.k.a. “El Laberinto del Fauno”) at the premiere of the new 3D version.

Back in theaters across the country on Friday (which is also Del Toro’s 62nd birthday), “Pan’s Labyrinth” is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new 4K restoration, available in both 2D and in the aforementioned 3D transfer that Del Toro himself oversaw.

Doug Jones, left, plays the faun that beckons to Ofelia, right, played by Ivana Baquero in “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

(Scott A. Garfitt / Andreea Alexandru / Invision / AP)

As brutal as it is spellbinding, the Mexican filmmaker’s modern classic unfolds during the Spanish Civil War — more precisely, in 1944 — as young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her pregnant mother move into the camp run by the ruthless Capt. Vidal (Sergi López).

Amid the bloodshed, Ofelia discovers an underworld of magical entities, including the alluring faun (Doug Jones), who convinces her that she is a princess who must reclaim her royal status.

By winning three Academy Awards and being nominated for two more — one for Del Toro’s screenplay, the other for foreign language film, representing Mexico — “Pan’s Labyrinth” signified an artistic watershed moment in Del Toro’s career. These accolades came after he directed two comic-book adaptations for Hollywood studios: “Blade II” and “Hellboy.”

Beyond the recognition, the experience felt spiritually transformative for the Guadalajara native; not the least because of the hurdles he overcame to bring it to fruition.

“‘Pan’s’ marks a big divide in what I did before and what I did after. I became invested in a different way in filmmaking,” Del Toro tells me. “I don’t know how to describe it, but filmmaking became a religion, as opposed to something that I could do. It fused with me.”

Though the film is now regarded as one of the greatest works of the 21st century, when Del Toro set out to make it, the industry was not receptive to his ideas.

“Everything I thought I wanted to say about war in ‘Devil’s Backbone’ seemed obsolete, because we had gone through 9/11 and the world had changed,” Del Toro recalls. “I didn’t want to do an American movie. I was being offered a lot of comic- book movies and said, ‘I got to do a companion piece for “Devil’s Backbone” no matter what.’ But nobody wanted to do the movie.”

One key objection was the mature tone of the narrative, in which the child protagonist is directly confronted and endangered by the evils derived from fascist ideologies.

“They said, ‘If it’s a fairy tale then it should be a family movie,’ because I’d been offered ‘Narnia’ a year before by [former Walden Media chief executive] Cary Granat,” Del Toro tells me.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you do ‘Narnia’?’ And I said, ‘Because I want to do my own version of a fairy tale where the lion doesn’t resurrect and it’s about a pitiless world against a boundless imagination.’”

Del Toro’s interest in stories where the woes of children are taken seriously was spurred by ‘Los Olvidados,’ Luis Buñuel’s classic from 1950, about a group of neglected children surviving a harsh reality in the streets of Mexico City.

“When I saw ‘Los Olvidados,’ I was in my early teens,” says Del Toro. “I thought every time somebody told a story about a child that was unsentimental and that was a little brutal — it could be ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’ or ‘Los Olvidados’ or ‘The Red Balloon’ or even Bobby Driscoll in ‘The Window’ — whenever you saw a child in real danger, a child in jeopardy, a child in moral dilemma, like ‘The Fallen Idol,’ I really was transported.”

Children, Del Toro believes, are often invisible to adults. They are “cartoons” in the eyes of “regular adults.” Thus, when his mother started reading child psychology books to better understand a young Del Toro, he read them as well, so that he could try to manipulate her.

Del Toro laughs mischievously as he remembers his antics. “I would do exactly what the book said, and I realized I could work within that preconception and make my grandma buy me horror comic books or make my mom allow me to miss school,” Del Tor recalls. “Ofelia is very strong. That was the point of the movie for me. I wanted to see the clash of wills between a young kid and a fascist captain, and I wanted to see the kid win.”

(Teresa Isasi / Picturehouse)

Del Toro’s mother, Guadalupe, died in 2022. But she lives on in cinema, thanks to the 1985 landmark queer Mexican film “Doña Herlinda and Her Son,” by director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, where she played the titular Doña Herlinda.

And if you look closely, you’ll also find Del Toro in the movie, which was filmed in Guadalajara.

“I have a cameo with my ex-wife in it. Lorenza. She’s the receptionist and I appear dancing in Chapala, but I’m super thin, so you can never recognize me,” he says. “I’m dancing with a girl that I liked, but I was already in the throes of dating the one who became my wife, Lorenza.”

Then there was the question of the picture’s language. Del Toro wouldn’t waver on making “Pan’s Labyrinth” in Spanish.

“Many of them said, ‘We’ll do it if you do it in English — set in Spain, same ending, the girl dies, no problem, but in English.’ And I said, ‘I can’t. It’s not true to the movie.’ I’m not saying you can never do that, but it’s always this ‘Zorro’ thing like, ‘Are you in a hurry, señor?’ or ‘Come to the hacienda,’” he says, doing a funny, exaggerated accent on the Spanish words.

“If you’re trying to contrast reality versus fantasy, the reality has to be in its language, in its location,” Del Toro adds, emphasizing his resolve to make the movie in his native tongue. “I thought, ‘This is about the reality clashing with the fantasy. I have to make the reality stylized, but I don’t want to do it in English, because then everything is a construct. Everything is just an idea.’”

In 2026, the film’s bilingual appeal is a major component of the marketing strategy that Cineverse — the entertainment company that Del Toro approached to handle the restoration and rerelease of “Pan’s Labyrinth” — is implementing to reach audiences across the country.

“A lot of our messages are in English and in Spanish. The messaging around the making of the 3D — Guillermo likes to say ‘F— AI,’ but we positioned it as ‘Made for humans, for humans. Hecho por humanos, para humanos,’” says Yolanda Macias, chief motion pictures officer at Cineverse. “That’s a really strong message that has resonated with our fans.”

A Mexican American woman whose parents emigrated from Jalisco, Macias sees “Pan’s Labyrinth” as a timeless movie that’s as relevant today as it was two decades ago.

“We are not ignoring a very important segment of the audience, which is the Latino population who have always, in my experience, shown an interest in creators from Mexico or from Latin America,” Macias says. “And we are so proud of Guillermo for being that person for this audience.”

When first envisioning “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Del Toro found himself grappling with existential concerns related to the meaning and relevance of what each person leaves behind when they are gone. Can anything we mortals create stand the test of time? Does it matter?

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“One of the things I was going through was I thought, ‘Is making movies worth it? You give them years and years and years, and then they just move down the current into the oblivion of the culture,’” Del Toro says. “A central theme in the film is, ‘Can we give our lives to something that doesn’t change the world?’ That’s why the movie ends with a little flower blooming in a dried tree. That’s all that is left of her story in the real world.”

His films will one day too become flowers left not only as proof of his time on earth, but perhaps as messages for those to come who have the sensibility to appreciate them.

“You can say, ‘Ofelia lived in the other kingdom,’ but in the real world, there’s only one tiny flower. And that’s why it says, ‘For those that know where to look.’ Because that’s what we do as filmmakers. When you ‘discover’ a filmmaker, you say, ‘I discovered this guy Fellini.’ Well, he’s been there for a while, but sure. Or you discover Miyazaki or Mamoru Oshii … They’re continents, but they are only in maps that are very secret. I like that image.”

So long as they are found, Del Toro doesn’t worry that much about how people encounter them.

“[Films] live on to a certain degree. Like when we were shooting ‘Frankenstein,’ I said, ‘We will live forever in the Netflix queue,’” he recalls, trying not to laugh. “Theatrical is the best. There’s no comparison. But I remember my childhood, I saw all the Universal monster movies on TV, and they were monumentally important for me. There’s something to be said about accessibility that is also important.”

I agree with him — and mention that some of the most revelatory movie-watching experiences for me as a young cinephile happened thanks to bootleg DVDs, which I would buy as a teen in Mexico City.

“I love the pirate DVDs in Mexico,” says Del Toro with a laugh. “I’ll tell you a little story: We went to promote ‘Hellboy’ in Mexico City, and we were having coffee. A guy came in and said, ‘You want to buy movies?’ And he had ‘Hellboy’ already, opening week … and it didn’t have a cover either!”

Another distinction that “Pan’s Labyrinth” holds is that it was the last film in Spanish that Del Toro directed. But that could change, he says; he still has another project he’d like to make in Mexico.

“I actually have an idea that I would love to shoot, but I want to make it a drama. I don’t want to make it a fantasy movie,” he explains. “I have a great story that I want to shoot one day. It’s a kidnapping scene from three points of view. The victim, the people doing the pickup, and another component that I will not reveal.” (Del Toro’s late father, Federico, was famously kidnapped in Guadalajara in the late 1990s.)

The thought of Del Toro making another Mexican film in the future, reminded me that the original screenplay for his period ghost story, “The Devil’s Backbone,” was set in Mexico, but a lack of funding forced him to shift the production to Spain, with the help of Pedro Almodóvar’s company El Deseo.

“It was about a traveling circus during the [Mexican] revolution with a mother, a father and a boy. It was full of jarred fetuses. The boy was a clown, and the father was a magician. I was trying to do Bergman’s ‘Hour of the Wolf’ or ‘The Magician’ — modest but creepy,” he explains. “But it was very different. I had the orphanage, I had the legend of the fetuses and a ghost; and I had the devil live in the monastery.”

In any language, Del Toro is a fierce advocate against the use of generative AI in artistic creation. He believes that anything touched by humans has a better chance to endure. The love audiences still hold for “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a testament to this sentiment.

“[Pan’s Labyrinth”] is very truthful to who I was. And whenever you are able to be truthful, people feel that it matters to you,” Del Toro says. “And when you think it matters to someone, you cherish it.”