MADRID: After a year blighted by embarrassing scandals, Spain's King Juan Carlos moves to repair his damaged reputation Friday with the broadcast of a rare televised interview to mark his 75th birthday.
No details of the pre-recorded interview had leaked from the royal palace ahead of its airing on Friday evening, but Spanish media trailed it by scrutinising the recent tribulations of the king, a key player in Spain's modern history.
Juan Carlos has recently appeared hobbling around on crutches after having both hips replaced, but any sympathy for his health has been overshadowed by scandals over elephant-hunting in Africa and a corruption probe implicating his family.
In a poll published Thursday by El Mundo newspaper, only half of people expressed a positive judgement of his reign, compared with three-quarters a year ago.
Juan Carlos, who turns 75 on Saturday, won respect in Spain for helping guide it to democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
But the king's image suffered last year from two scandals.
The first was a corruption case against his son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin, the duke of Palma, who went before a judge in February.
The other was an expensive game-hunting trip the king himself made to Botswana, seen as an unacceptable extravagance while Spain suffered in a recession.
Thursday's poll showed general support for having a monarchy in Spain has fallen to 54 percent, six points down from a year ago and "a historic low", according to the newspaper.
For days ahead of the interview broadcast, national television has aired old footage including Juan Carlos's solemn address, dressed in his officer's uniform, condemning an attempted coup on February 23, 1981.
A generation after those historic events, the poll found that nearly 58 percent of people aged between 18 and 29 said they thought a monarchy was not the best form of governance for Spain.
El Mundo suggested people of this generation do not share their parents' reverence for the king since they "did not live through the transition and are not very interested in it".
In his annual Christmas speech to the nation, Juan Carlos called on Spaniards to unite against the current economic crisis that has thrown millions out of work.
"We cannot ignore that there is pessimism, and that its effects are felt in the social climate we are living in," the king said, after a year of mass street demonstrations and two general strikes.
Of all the measures to combat the crisis, "the main stimulus that will get us out of this crisis is called confidence," he said in the speech, in which he made a point of appearing without crutches, standing beside his desk.
Observers saw this as one in a series of efforts to strengthen the monarchy's standing.
"The royal palace has launched in recent months a studious marketing operation to improve the image of the king," El Mundo wrote in an editorial.
In this week's poll nearly 45 percent of people questioned said Juan Carlos should abdicate to make way for his son, Felipe, 44.
-AFP/fl
King speaks to sceptical Spaniards
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King speaks to sceptical Spaniards
