Adolfo Suárez has been the conservative Spanish politician with the least curriculum. In his generation, only accredited anti-Francoists could afford to go out into the public arena without brilliant university degrees or some civil service examination under his arm. Perhaps that is why his appointment caused surprise and even astonishment: a huge mistake, a blackout, as the media called his call to form a government in 1976.

Then came the successes, the achievements in fact, in the midst of that turbulent process that was the transition to democracy, which he tried to promote and channel at the same time. The people recognized them. He won two key referendums and two general elections in three years. That man of the Movement, that blue-shirted Francoist, had managed, as he himself said in a memorable speech, to make normal in Spanish politics what was normal in the street: a civilized coexistence that recognized pluralism lived in freedom. And he had achieved this in a short time. He changed Spanish politics so much that foreigners did not believe it.

Adolfo Suarez had understood his time and his fellow citizens. More than traced, he had intuited the path and had managed to get others to follow him. He had seduced the politicians who had to make decisions, from the King to Santiago Carrillo, with his warm style in short distances; and he had won the confidence of the majority of Spaniards with his handling of television and with facts.

And then came the dark time. Some party colleagues did not forgive him for his success, nor did the socialist civil service examination , who understood that it was time to move from consensus to demolition. 1980 was devastating. Shortly after the end of the year he resigned, convinced that he would be asked to stay on. He was wrong. Then came the failed attempt of the CDS, the withdrawal from politics, and years later, then yes, the recognitions.

In 1980, in one of those short distances, when leaving a UCD meeting , he asked: "Why don't we love each other more". He had found one of the keys to Spanish politics, fundamental to understand his career.