I don't have any insight into what to call it right now, but I thought for several decades after WWII it was still fascist? If anything being a banana republic might not be as as bad as what it used to be

i knew it was a little while after WWII (college history was long, long ago!) but didn't realize it was ... 1975-1977!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democrac...

I did a whole Wikipedia deep dive on this several months ago. I vaguely remembered hearing how long it took for it to switch back, but the history around it is kind of fascinating; the son of the previous king was groomed to be the successor of Francisco Franco, and I guess he did a good enough job convincing him that he was ideologically in agreement so that the power was passed to him, which he then used to reinstate a republican form of government.