Vicente Ruiz Monrabal
Encyclopedia
Vicente Ruiz Monrabal is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
1936) is a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
lawyer and former politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
.
Ruiz qualified as a lawyer at the University of Valencia. During his time at University he became President of the Rural Catholic Youth group and a member of Young Catholic Action. In the 1960s he became involved with Christian democratic
Christian Democracy
Christian democracy is a political ideology that seeks to apply Christian principles to public policy. It emerged in nineteenth-century Europe under the influence of conservatism and Catholic social teaching...
groups helping to found the Democratic Union of the Valencian Country in 1967 and becoming Secretary General of that group.
In the 1970s he was involved with meetings of the various anti-Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
groups which were operating in secret.
He headed the party list in Valencia Province
Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District)
Valencia is one of the 52 electoral districts used for the Spanish Congress of Deputies—the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales. It is the third largest district in Congress in terms of the numbers of deputies elected, as it elects sixteen deputies out of the total...
at the 1977 General Election
Spanish general election, 1977
The Spanish general election of 1977 took place on 15 June 1977. It was the first election since the death of Francisco Franco.Voting was on the basis of universal suffrage in a secret ballot. The elections were held using closed list proportional representation in 52 electoral districts...
but was unsuccessful.
Shortly afterwards he joined the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) and was elected to the Spanish Congress of Deputies for Valencia Province at the 1979 General Election
Spanish general election, 1979
General elections were held in Spain on 1 March 1979.-References:* *...
, serving until 1982. Within the UCD he was one of those who argued for greater autonomy for the Valencian Community
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
at a time when an internal conflict was underway within the UCD over the future status of the Valencian Community and the symbols to be used there. Consequently he spoke at party meetings in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
rather than Valencian
Valencian
Valencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...
in order to avoid being branded as "Catalanist."
He was present in Congress during the attempted coup known as 23F, believing that the group of armed men who were taking over the Congress Chamber were members of the violent Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
separatist group ETA
ETA
ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...
.
In 1982 he withdrew from the UCD and followed former Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez
Adolfo Suárez
Adolfo Suárez y González, 1st Duke of Suárez, Grandee of Spain, KOGF is a Spanish lawyer and politician. Suárez was Spain's first democratically elected prime minister after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and the key figure in the country's transition to democracy.-Parents:He is a son of...
and others into the newly formed Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) but failed to hold his seat as a CDS member at the 1982 General Election. Subsequently he had a brief period as a member of the People's Party
People's Party (Spain)
The People's Party is a conservative political party in Spain.The People's Party was a re-foundation in 1989 of the People's Alliance , a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former Minister of Tourism during Francisco Franco's dictatorship...
before retiring from political life.