The Spanish officer who led the 1981 coup attempt has died. Tejero, the negative protagonist of a defining moment in Spain's transition to democracy
Image from the attempted coup in the Spanish parliament, on February 23, 1981. Credit: Album – Archivo ABC – Teodoro Naranjo Domínguez / Album / Profimedia
Antonio Tejero Molina, the Spanish Civil Guard officer who led a failed coup attempt in 1981, has died at the age of 93, his family's lawyer announced on Wednesday, according to AFP and Reuters.
The death of Molina, a loyalist of the Franco regime, was announced on the same day that Spain's leftist government released classified documents about the attempted coup of February 23, 1981, a key moment in the country's modern history.
“Lieutenant-Colonel Don Antonio Tejero Molina has passed away. A man of honor with an unshakable faith and a great love for Spain. May God grant him the peace that the people denied him,” Luis Felipe Utrera Molina wrote in a post on the X platform.
Spain's transition to democracy, put to the test on February 23, 1981
The coup attempt took place six years after the death of General Francisco Franco and was orchestrated by military officers nostalgic for the privileges they enjoyed during more than four decades of Franco's dictatorship.
On February 23, 1981, rebel civil guards, led by Tejero Molina, stormed the Spanish parliament, attempting to prevent the inauguration of the new democratically elected government and force a return to dictatorship.
“Quiet, everybody!” Tejero Molina shouted at the lawmakers, who were held hostage at gunpoint for 17 hours.
The coup attempt tested the firmness of a constitution drawn up just three years earlier and strengthened the position of King Juan Carlos, who moved quickly to quell the coup with a live broadcast of his support for the democratically elected government.
Tejero was born in Alhaurin el Grande, near Malaga, on April 30, 1932, and grew up in a military environment that imprinted on him the fascist values of the Franco regime: anti-communism, anti-liberalism, opposition to the distribution of power between the regions of Spain and “above all the awareness of the superiority of the military over the civilian sphere”, according to historian Roberto Muñoz Bolaños.
Tejero spent much of his life loyally supporting Franco's regime, which ended with the general's death on November 20, 1975, and then hoped for a return to far-right rule.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the 1981 coup attempt.
He had also been associated with another failed attempt to overthrow the government in November 1978, known as “Operation Galaxy”, for which he was sentenced to seven months in prison.
