THE results of the four general elections that have taken place in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco confirm the existence of a fundamental political cleavage dividing the electorate into modernizers and traditionalists. The polls of 1977, 1979, 1982 and 1986 have gradually but conclusively given shape to a political system which shows the following distinctive features:(1) The legitimization of the Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE) as holder of the political centre and the main" party of democracy", with the formation of a broad centrist bloc including the PSOE, the Basque and the Catalonian Nationalists further consolidating democratic legitimacy;(2) The'de-legitimization'of the right-wing movement, Popular Coalition (CP), and its main component party, Popular Alliance (AP), as exponents of a truly democratic value system, with their possible division into a party with a liberal pro-European, modern and democratic ideology and another party with an authoritarian traditionalist, nationalist ideology;