On March 3, he will undergo back surgery, the royal palace said Thursday. He has had operations on both hips, a knee and for a benign lung tumor. The king's health, meanwhile, has been a subject for concern over the past two years. A January poll showed about half of Spaniards approved of the king, an impressive rating - but sharply down from the three-quarters support he enjoyed a year before. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of palace rules forbidding the official's identification.īut the sense of the king's popularity propping up the monarchy - a phenomenon known as "juancarlismo" - appears to be fading. So far, only the leader of the regional Catalan Socialist Party has called openly for Juan Carlos to abdicate and allow his son, Crown Prince Felipe, to take the throne and bring the monarchy more in line with the 21st century.Ī palace official said Friday that Juan Carlos has no plans to abdicate and that no plan exists to fast track the succession of Felipe. There is no major movement in Spain to eliminate the monarchy and restore a republican form of government. Juan Carlos was vilified last year after going on a luxurious African safari to hunt elephants while his subjects were being battered by economic woes and sky-high unemployment. Yet the stories of greed emerging from the Urdangarin case have deepened the sense that the royals are living large at the expense of a suffering nation. Francisco Franco, is widely credited with helping the country usher in democracy - and with saving it by staring down a military coup in 1981. The charismatic Juan Carlos, who took the throne in 1975 two days after the death of dictator Gen. If the king's standing and reputation comes shooting down, then you're in a very sticky position." "The whole thing is almost a personal loyalty to the king. or in Holland," said Tom Burns Maranon, who has written several books about Juan Carlos. "There is no deep-seated admiration for the monarchy as an institution as you'll find in the U.K. Juan Carlos, whose health has been declining along with his reputation, and the Spanish monarchy are facing one of their biggest crises ever. He gives closed-door testimony on Saturday before an investigating magistrate. The 45-year-old businessman, who denies any wrongdoing, faces questioning along with his wife's personal secretary. Urdangarin, married to the 75-year-old king's second daughter, Princess Cristina, is accused of using his position to embezzle several million dollars in public contracts assigned to a nonprofit foundation he set up. But the aging Juan Carlos himself has seemed increasingly out of touch with his people as they try to keep afloat in Europe's economic storm. What happened? The immediate cause is a corruption scandal engulfing Juan Carlos' son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, which has angered Spaniards in a time of crushing austerity. It was an unprecedented spectacle in a nearly four-decade reign over which the monarch has basked in the nation's love and respect. MADRID (AP) - When King Juan Carlos appeared at a recent basketball game in front of thousands of subjects, he was greeted by persistent heckling and whistling.
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