I still remember the night when Franco died (November 19-20, 1975). On the streets, there was a sense of uncertainty, fear and hope. After all, he was no ordinary man. Francisco Paulino Teodulo Hermenegildo Franco Bahamonde was the Caudillo and head of the state of Spain (by the grace of God), Commander-in-chief and Generalissimo of all its armed forces. He had been at the helm of affairs in Spain for nearly forty years, and without his direct or indirect approval nothing could happen in the country.

Now looking back after more than thirty years, I feel certain that no one in his wildest imagination could think that things would turn out the way they did in Spain.

The country was in the middle of an economic and political crisis, and growing unemployment together with high inflation and rising interest costs had made the overall economic situation quite desperate. After several years of expansion, the economy was clearly in recession, which unfortunately coincided with an economic slump all over the Western world.

On the political front, the situation was almost explosive. There were separatist movements in some regions. Almost two years before Franco's death, his hand-picked prime minister, Admiral Carrero Blanco, had been assassinated by Basque terrorists. His successor, Carlos Arias Navarro, was "a supremely uncharismatic lawyer." He was incapable of coping with the situation and reducing the level of violence on the streets.

There were more and more social protests, pro-democracy demonstrations and industrial strikes, all of which were prohibited under the existing laws. As a result, the government became increasingly more repressive.

Thirty years after those elections, Spain is, today, a completely different place. It is a fully functioning constitutional monarchy, and its economy is booming. Isolation is a thing of the past. It has become fully integrated into the Western world.

Its membership of the Nato has removed the threat of military coups, which had plagued the history of Spain for centuries, and its membership of the European Union has given stability to its economy. The fiscal system has been overhauled. Hundreds of millions of euros (often coming from the EU as subsidies) have been invested in modernising the country's infrastructure, education and health-care systems. During this period, more jobs have been created in Spain than anywhere else in Europe.

The status of women has changed completely. During the days of Franco, women could not even open a bank account or acquire any property without the written consent of their male relatives. Today women and men have equal status. Millions of women have entered the labour market, and they are found in every profession. More than 60% of university students are women.

Franco's centralised government in Madrid has given way to a decentralised structure, with power on many matters devolving to the autonomous regions. People are no longer afraid to talk in their regional languages. There is religious freedom. Today, there are mosques, synagogues and Protestant churches where one can pray freely, which was forbidden under Franco. No wonder, people call this metamorphosis the Spanish miracle.

How did this miracle take place, and who were its principal architects? Franco did not come to power as a result of democratic elections. His was a military uprising against the Republic.

In 1936, he rose up in open rebellion against the constitutionally elected government of Spain and, thus, started the civil war, which lasted for three and a half years and left more than a million dead. In his endeavour to capture power, he soon obtained support from the Catholic church, the Falange (a fascist party), and the monarchists. By no means were these groups friendly to each other. Neither did they have a common cause, except the destruction of the Republic.

Franco who, no doubt, was very shrewd, united these diverse groups into one entity called "the Movimiento Nacional," which functioned as the only political party in Spain. Many people think that Franco was able to retain absolute power in his hands for thirty- six years because he was astute enough to maintain the army, the Church, the Falange, and the monarchists -- the four components of the "Movimiento" -- on edge, and by continuously playing one against the other.

After nearly thirty years of absolute rule, Franco was persuaded by the "Movimiento" to think of the future, not for anything else but for a smooth transfer of power after his death. The objective was to have a constitutional framework, which would give some legitimacy to the governing clique (the army and the establishment), and under which Francoism could continue after Franco's death.

Even though Franco did not like Don Juan, the legitimate heir to the Spanish throne, at heart he was a monarchist. So it came as no surprise that when his health started to fail, he chose Don Juan's son, Prince Juan Carlos, who had been carefully indoctrinated with the principles of the "Movimiento," as his heir.

The day after the Prince was named as the successor, he was made to swear allegiance to the "Movimiento." Franco's men felt reassured that the restoration of monarchy would not affect their powers and prerogatives. They thought that Franco would merely be replaced by the king (even though, on paper, he would inherit immense powers), not as a dictator but simply as a titular head. They did not know that the king had other ideas.

Today, we realise that by an amazing stroke of good luck, Spain found exactly what it needed at this juncture of history -- a leader with a very rare virtue, that is, a leader who, instead of amassing power for himself, would return most of his near-absolute power to the people.

The most difficult part of the project was that it had to be done with the help of existing laws, without any bloodshed, and without an open rebellion from the governing clique.

The king knew that he had to act quickly to stop the cycle of violence, and take the "Movimiento" and the army by surprise in choosing the man who would execute his plan. He had to choose a man who would be relatively young, and well conversant with the functioning of the "Movimiento" and Franco's government.

Above all, he had to be a reformer, genuinely interested in parliamentary democracy. By July 1976, the king had made up his mind about the choice. He persuaded Prime Minister Arias-Navarro to step down, and manoeuvred a relatively unknown politician from the Franco apparatus, Adolfo Suarez, to the position of prime minister.

For the second time in the course of several months, by another stroke of fortune, Spain found the right man to carry out the reform. But the press reacted to the king's choice in a negative manner. "A mistake, an immense mistake" -- they repeated.

The rest is history. The king still remains immensely popular with the Spaniards, and is widely accepted as the symbol of unity and stability. Prime Minister Suarez encountered enormous challenges in completing his job as a reformer.

He later confessed that he did not have a magic formula for his miraculous success. No doubt, it required a lot of hard work, steely nerves, dogged determination, and unequalled negotiating skills, which unfortunately took a huge toll of Suarez's health.

Although he is still alive, an incurable disease has incapacitated him. The Spaniards owe an immense debt of gratitude to these two extraordinary men.

Chaklader Mahboob-ul Alam is a columnist for the Daily Star.