Felipe González

In 1979 González resigned as leader of Spain's Socialist Workers' Party when it refused to drop Marxism from its programme, then returned months later after a special congress agreed. Freed of the label, the PSOE won an absolute majority in 1982 and governed for fourteen years, joining the European Community, building a national health service and expanding universal education. The record darkens with the GAL death squads that operated against ETA under his government, and corruption scandals in the 1990s.