Amid controversy, Spain’s king has surgery again

MADRID—IN the latest twist in a drama gripping Spain, King Juan Carlos underwent surgery for the second time since fracturing his hip while elephant hunting in Botswana this month.

In a statement, the royal household said the king underwent an operation on Thursday for injuries to his right hip and released at 11 a.m. after spending the night in a Madrid hospital. It added that his recovery was “satisfactory,” that he was able to walk and that he would continue intensive physical therapy.

The second operation—prompted after the 74-year-old monarch twisted his hip while receiving the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates here Thursday—is the latest development in what has fast become a national debate about the king’s behavior and the role of the royal family in Spanish public life. It has also raised questions about whether the king has the strength—or tact—to perform his role, and what should happen if he does not.

Coming just weeks after the king told the nation he was losing sleep worrying about jobless Spaniards, news of the expensive hunting trip set off intense outrage here, where figures released on Friday showed unemployment at nearly 25 percent and where the country’s banks, saddled with bad debt from a housing boom, may need a bailout. On Thursday, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spain’s debt.

Long known for being alert to the national mood, Juan Carlos took an unprecedented step this month and became the first monarch to apologize in public. “I am sorry, I made a mistake and it won’t happen again,” he said, standing with the aid of crutches and speaking on national television from the hospital.

The ill-fated hunting excursion is the latest misstep in a bad year for the royal family. The king’s son-in-law was accused of embezzling public funds and in February became the first royal in modern history to be questioned in court. This month, a 13-year-old grandson of the king, Felipe Juan Froilan de Marichalar y Borbon, shot himself in the foot with a shotgun he was too young to use legally.

Beyond the tabloid fodder, the scandals have prompted a soul-searching about the role of the monarchy in Spanish democracy nearly 40 years after Gen. Francisco Franco’s death.

“This is a crucial moment for Spain,” said Santos Julia, a historian of Spain’s transition to democracy. “The distance between the crown and the people has never manifested itself so acutely before.”

He added: “This isn’t something that can be ignored, or the stuff of gossip magazines. It has profound causes and requires profound remedies.”

Brought back from exile by Franco, Juan Carlos is credited with shepherding Spain’s transition to democracy in the late 1970s after the dictator’s death, and the monarchy had grown to command more respect, and more deference from the press, than any other institution in Spain. Today, all that has changed. Spaniards are questioning whether the monarchy is a necessary guarantor of Spanish democracy, or if the king is essentially an exceptionally well-bred lobbyist whose private agenda should be made public like that of any politician.

The king attracted criticism when it emerged that the week-long safari, which the Spanish news media have estimated to cost $50,000, had been paid for by a Syrian businessman who helped Juan Carlos open doors in Saudi Arabia, where in January a Spanish consortium won an $8.9-billion contract to build a high-speed train to Mecca.

The king has close ties with rulers in the Persian Gulf, Spanish analysts say, and days before traveling to Botswana the king also traveled to Kuwait to meet the emir, although on what kind of business it is not known.

Spanish media have generally treated the royal family with kid gloves—especially the left-wing news media, which saw Juan Carlos as playing a crucial role in preserving Spanish democracy during a military coup attempt in 1981. Not so today.