SPAIN's former Prime Minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, yesterday threw his Socialist Party into disarray when he announced was standing down as party leader.
The 5,000 delegates and invited guests to the 34th PSOE congress listened in shocked silence as Mr Gonzalez (55) told them he was stepping aside to make way for a new generation.
"After nearly 23 years as secretary general and almost 14 as head of government, the time has come to make way for new blood and to use my experience in other ways to work for and further democratic socialism in the 21st century," he said. He was, he added, ready to work for the party in whatever way it decided.
The three-day federal congress had been expected to approve the introduction of new blood into the party hierarchy with an eye to the future, but no one had questioned Mr Gonzalez's position as secretary general or his role in guiding the new faces. His re-election tomorrow was expected to have been a mere formality. The only pre-congress controversy was over whether Mr Alfonso Guerra, deputy secretary general, should be replaced.
Mr Gonzalez and Mr Guerra were once close friends, but differences over policies emerged in the early days of the Socialist government. In many eyes, Mr Gonzalez stands for "New Socialism", white Mr Guerra represents old-style socialist beliefs.
The youthful Felipe Gonzalez, a former labour lawyer and son of a modest agricultural worker in Seville, had been elected secretary general of the then clandestine Spanish Socialist Party in Suresnes, France, in 1974, at a time when political parties were still illegal in Spain.
He was elected with a group including Mr Guerra. Most of them have remained alongside him since that time. They signified a break with the past and with the Civil War generation.
Since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975 and the introduction of a democratic monarchy, Mr Gonzalez has remained in the forefront of Spanish political life. In 1982, he was elected prime minister, a position he held until PSOE was narrowly defeated at the polls in March last year.
Mr Joaquin Almunia, one of the names tipped for the post of secretary general, admitted recently that the fact that the Suresnes generation of PSOE leaders had all been in their early 20s when they were elected and are still comparatively young in political terms has hindered the emergence of a new generation of socialist politicians.
Although many other candidates for Secretary general are being suggested, some still refuse to believe that the man who has personified Spanish socialism for so many years is really leaving the stage.