Spain approves law allowing exhumation of ex-dictator

Madrid : Spain's Parliament voted on Thursday in favour of exhuming the body of former military dictator General Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum complex in north of Madrid.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the new measure was adopted due to the votes of all parliamentary groups with the exception of the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos, who both abstained, Efe news reported.

Calvo added that peace was not possible without justice and that it was "an atrocious aberration" that a dictator who seized power in a military uprising should be buried in a monument alongside the bodies of those who opposed him and were his victims.

Calvo was critical of the PP and Ciudadanos for turning a blind eye to Franco's brutal and internecine dictatorship.

For its part, Ciudadanos said that the exhumation should be ordered by parliamentary decree and that there was no need of such urgency given that Franco had been dead and buried for 43 years.

The business-friendly centre-right party added that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was using the exhumation debate as a smokescreen to conceal his government's weakness and incompetence.