Acceso usuarios
0n January 31, 1986, the question to be put to the Spanish people in the referendum of March 12 of that year, on the subject of the country's continuing membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), finally became known. The text of the question as published in the Official Gazette in addition to such major national newspaper as El País or ABC read as follows:
(1) ¿Considera conveniente para España permanecer en la Alianza Atlántica en los términos acordados por el Gobierno de la Nación? (Do you consider it convenient for Spain to remain in the Atlantic Alliance in the terms agreed upon by the Goverment of The Nation?).
But on the ballot used by the citizens and in other newspapers such as La Vanguardia and Diario 16, the question appeared in a "slightly" different form which we reproduce in (2):
(2) ¿Considera conveniente para España permanecer en la Alianza Atlántica, en los términos acordados por el Gobierno de la Nación? (Do you consider it convenient for Spain to remain in the Atlantic Alliance, in the terms agreed upon by the Goverment of The Nation?).
Our aim in this paper is to show that the differences in punctuation between (1) and (2) prove (i) that formulations (1) and (2) of the question are substantially diffeerent, and that (ii), being (1) and (2) different, the answer of the citizens to the referendum under the wording (2) does not coincide with the possible answer to question (1), as formulated in the Official State Gazette.
