A sense of alarm is spreading through the Spanish left over the problems blocking the exhumation of the dictator Franco. Whilst the original talk from Pedro Sánchez's government was of moving the dictator's remains in September, they're still stuck in the planning phase. The current issue is that the Spanish government wasn't aware that, 30 years ago, the Franco family purchased a tomb in the crypt of Madrid's Almudena cathedral and now want that to be the destination for his remains. That would mean his supporters would now have a pilgrimage site in the heart of the Spanish capital instead, next door to the royal palace.
Former judge Elpidio José Silva has suggested that Pedro Sánchez's government could expropriate the tomb, or even the cathedral itself, "to preserve the image of the democratic state in Spain". "A cult of a dictator is an important action against democracy. It has no place in Madrid's cathedral, next to the Royal Palace," he wrote on Twitter.
El Gobierno puede (R. Decreto-Ley) expropiar la tumba o la propia Almudena, para preservar la imagen del Estado democrático en #España (15LEF y 23REF).
— Elpidio José Silva (@elpidiojsilva) 18 d’octubre de 2018
El culto a un dictador es un hecho relevante contra la #Democracia. No cabe en la catedral de Madrid, junto al Palacio Real https://t.co/gROtux6Rbh
Former PSOE leader José Antonio Pérez Tapias has also commented on the matter, describing the current situation as "an embarrassment". He quotes El Diario as saying "the Church sees the burial of Franco in La Almudena as inevitable and is getting ready to limit chants and fascist flags inside it", asking "is there no god to stop it?".
Una vergüenza. ¿Es que no hay dios que lo pare? "La Iglesia ve inevitable el enterramiento de Franco en La Almudena y se prepara para limitar cánticos y banderas fascistas en el interior https://t.co/x0Q7x25xaL vía @eldiarioes
— JA Pérez Tapias (@japtapias) 17 d’octubre de 2018