Jerónimo Saavedra | |
|---|---|
 Saavedra in the Canarian Parliament | |
| President of the Canary Islands | |
| In office 25 July 1991 – 6 April 1993 | |
| Preceded by | Lorenzo Olarte |
| Succeeded by | Manuel Hermoso |
| In office 13 January 1983 – 3 August 1987 | |
| Preceded by | Francesco Ucelay(president of the Junta of Canarias) |
| Succeeded by | Fernando Fernández |
| Minister of Education and Science of Spain | |
| In office 3 July 1995 – 5 May 1996 | |
| Prime Minister | Felipe González |
| Preceded by | Gustavo Suárez Pertierra |
| Succeeded by | Esperanza Aguirre |
| Minister of Public Administrations of Spain | |
| In office 14 July 1993 – 3 July 1995 | |
| Prime Minister | Felipe González |
| Preceded by | Juan Manuel Eguiagaray |
| Succeeded by | Joan Lerma |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1936-07-03)3 July 1936 |
| Died | 21 November 2023(2023-11-21) (aged 87) Las Palmas, Spain |
| Party | PSOE (1972–2011) |
| Alma mater | Complutense University of Madrid |
Jerónimo Saavedra Acevedo (3 July 1936 – 21 November 2023) was a Spanish politician and academic. He served asPresident of the Canary Islands twice, from 1983 to 1987, and again from 1991 to 1993.[1][2][3][4]
He became the first president of the Canary Islands after the establishment of theautonomous communities system under the 1978 Constitution and was in charge of structuring the regional administration and overseeing thedemocratic transition in the islands. Saavedra also served asMinister of Public Administrations of Spain between 1993 and 1995 and asMinister of Education and Science of Spain between 1995 and 1996. He was a member of theCongress of Deputies in the constituent legislature until 1983, asenator twice and mayor of his hometownLas Palmas de Gran Canaria between 2007 and 2011.
Saavedra was a significant figure inSpanish LGBT history, being the first openly gay politician to hold several high public offices.
Saavedra was born inLas Palmas de Gran Canaria on 3 July 1936 to a middle-class Canarian bourgeois family two weeks before the outbreak of theSpanish Civil War.[5] He was the son of Martín Saavedra, a fishing businessman, and Isabel Acevedo.[5] His paternal grandfather was Jerónimo Saavedra de la Cruz, the liberal lieutenant colonel fromMálaga who became the military governor of the island ofGran Canaria in 1879, and who married Luisa Medina, a native ofAgaete of the northern part of the island and a relative of the poetTomás Morales Castellano [es].[5]
In 1940 Saavedra began his studies at the Jesuit school of Las Palmas, a school known for not having a harsh Francoist education, and where he stayed until he was 16 years old, when he finished his baccalaureate.[5] In October 1953 he began his law career at theUniversity of La Laguna inTenerife, moving in 1956 to Madrid, where he finished his studies in 1958 at theComplutense University of Madrid.[5][6] He specialised in labour and trade union law and started working as an assistant professor.[5]
After earning his doctorate in law, Saavedra moved in 1959 toCologne to improve his German and to get in contact with the labour law expert and academicHans Carl Nipperdey.[5] After returning briefly to Madrid, Saavedra settled inFlorence, Italy, to study the international trade union movement.[5]
Between 1959 and 1962 he studied for a diploma in Business Administration at the Escuela de Organización Industrial in Madrid and at the International School of Comparative Labour Law in Trieste, Italy.[6] Back in Madrid in 1967, he co-founded the Centro de Estudios de Problemas Contemporáneos (Centre for the Study of Contemporary Problems).[5] In 1970 Saavedra became professor of labor law at the University of La Laguna.[6]
In the summer of that year, Saavedra, together with other jurists and intellectuals, promoted the creation of the Instituto Universitario de la Empresa, an institutional platform to channel the debate on the new economic and fiscal regime of the Canary Islands that was then under discussion.[5] This institute convened several sectoral meetings and concluded with 64 criteria that laid the foundations for the futureStatute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands [es], which would only be possible with the advent of democracy.[5]
Saavedra joined theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and theUnión General de Trabajadores (UGT) in summer 1972.[5] He took part in the 24th Congress of the PSOE in 1972 in Toulouse and was secretary at the 25th Congress in 1974 in Suresnes, the latter being the one that broke with the party's clandestine tradition and allowed the party to expand in the Canary Islands.[5][6]
In thefirst democratic elections of 1977, Saavedra was elected to theConstituent Courts representingLas Palmas and became a member of the Commission of Constitutional Affairs and Public Liberties that was in charge of drafting theConstitution of Spain.[5] He was a member of the Congress of Deputies for first time until1983.[5]
Between 1977 and 1983, and between 1988 and 1997 he was the Secretary-General of theSocialist Party of the Canaries (PSC-PSOE).[5]
During theSpanish transition to democracy the process of establishing the Canary Islands as an autonomous community began in April 1978.[5] On 14 April, Saavedra became the first vice-president of the Junta of Canarias, the pre-autonomy executive and legislative body.[5] This provisional organ was mainly responsible for drafting the new Statute of Autonomy, receiving the symbolic transfer of authority in Culture and Urban Planning, and urging transfers in Education "to make it understandable to the majority of citizens that autonomy was convenient and necessary".[5]
In August 1982, theCortes Generales approved the new Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands and Saavadera was elected interim president of the first autonomous government.[5]
In thefirst regional elections held on 8 May 1983, he was elected member of theParliament of the Canary Islands for the constituency of Gran Canaria. He resigned as a deputy in the Congress of Deputies and was elected on 7 June of that year as president of the Canary Islands.[5] The Saavedra government had to design the structures of a regional administration that had just been created.[5] In the autumn of 1983 he promoted the Canary Islands Music Festival (Festival de Música de Canarias), which was created in 1984 and held its first performances in 1985.[7][8]
On 21 June 1985 he resigned after a report in Parliament opposed to theAccession Treaty of Spain to the European Economic Community, referring to the Protocol II on the Canary Islands, which had been signed a few days earlier, was successful.[5][6][9] Even so, the following 15 July, thanks to the "Progress Pact" signed by the PSC-PSOE, the Communist Party and the nationalist forces, he was again sworn in as president of the Canary Islands.[5][6] Saavedra stood for re-election in1987. Although his party won a plurality of seats, a centre-right agreement madeFernando Fernández Martín the new president on 30 July 1987.[5][10]
In 1990, the PSC-PSOE elected him again as a candidate for the presidency of the islands in the1991 elections.[5] Saavedra won the elections again, and on 10 July 1991 he was sworn in as president for the fourth time.[5] On 31 March 1993, a vote of censure led byManuel Hermoso, who was Saavedra's Vice-president, together with the rest of the parties except thePeople's Party of the Canary Islands overthrew Saavedra's government.[5][11] Three months later, the Canarian parliament appointed himsenator.[5]
With the victory of the PSOE the1993 general elections, newly reelected Prime Minister of SpainFelipe González named Saavedra as theMinister of Public Administrations of Spain,[12][13] an office to which he was sworn in on 14 July 1993.[14] On 29 July he resigned as a senator and as member of the Canarian parliament.[15][5] As minister he promoted the Modernisation Plan for the Administration and managed the transfer of power to the Autonomous Communities.[5][16]
In the reshuffle of the González government of 1995, Saavedra was appointedMinister of Education and Science of Spain.[17][18] He was sworn in on 4 July 1995 and held the office until 5 May 1997, when was succeeded byEsperanza Aguirre.[14][19]
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The Parliament of Canarias named him once again as senator, assuming the office on 20 July 1999 and until 22 July 2003.[20][21] Saavedra ran again for the presidency of the Canary Islands in the1999 elections, but was unsuccessful.[5] Between 2004 and 2011, and since 2018 Saavedra was member of the Board of Trustees of theTeatro Real.[7]
In 2007, he waselected mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in a landslide victory, bringing the twelve-year rule of the rival conservativePeople's Party to an end.[5] He held office until his defeat in his unsuccessful reelection campaign in2011.[6]
Saavedra was designated asOmbudsman (Diputado del Común) of theCanary Islands between 2011 and 2018, which obliged him to leave the PSOE.[22]
In December 2000, during the presentation ofFernando Bruquetas de Castro [es]'s bookOuting en España. Los españoles salen del armario (Outing in Spain. Spaniards come out of the closet), Saavedra announced publicly that he wasgay. As he explained in the book's foreword, his coming out was prompted by the death of his partner Sebastián in a traffic accident that year, when he asked Sebastián's family for his name to be included in the obituary.[23][24][25]
After coming out, Saavedra joinedMiquel Iceta as one of thefirst openly gay politicians in the history of Spain and he became the first to hold certain high public offices: member of the Cortes Generales, minister, mayor of a provincial capital, and president of anAutonomous Community.[24]
He was also aFreemason, having been initiated into the Lisbon Lodge in 1989, being the first Freemason minister of the Spanish democracy.[25]
His niece,Marta Saavedra, has been a PSOE senator for Gran Canaria since 2023.[26][27]
Saavedra died on 21 November 2023 at the age of 87 in his home of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.[5] That same afternoon the funeral chapel was opened in the Casas Consistoriales of Las Palmas.[28] The municipal government and the government of the Canary Islands decreed three days of official mourning.[29][30] On the afternoon of 22 November, Saavedra was buried in the cemetery of the Vegueta neighbourhood, the Las Palmas district where he lived all his life.[31]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | President of the Canary Islands 1983–1987 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Canary Islands 1991–1993 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Public Administrations 1993–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Education and Science 1995–1996 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Mayor ofLas Palmas de Gran Canaria 2007–2011 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| New post | Secretary-General of theSocialist Party of the Canaries 1977–1985 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary-General of theSocialist Party of the Canaries 1988–1997 | Succeeded by |
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| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
