Adolfo Suárez González, 1st Duke of Suárez (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈswaɾeθ]; 25 September 1932 – 23 March 2014) was a Spanish lawyer and politician. Suárez was Spain's first democratically elected prime minister since the Second Spanish Republic and a key figure in the country's transition to democracy after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

When Spain was still an autocratic regime, he was appointed prime minister by King Juan Carlos in 1976. At the time of his appointment, he was not a well-known figure, making many political forces skeptical of his government. However, he oversaw the end of the Francoist Cortes, and the legalisation of all political parties (including the Communist Party of Spain, a particularly difficult move). He led the Union of the Democratic Centre and won the 1977 general election. In 1981, he resigned and founded the party Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), which was elected to the Cortes numerous times. He retired from politics in 1991 and from public life in 2003, due to Alzheimer's disease.

Adolfo Suárez González was born on 25 September 1932 in Cebreros in the Province of Ávila of Spain, the eldest son of Hipólito Suárez Guerra, a lawyer, and Herminia González Prados. Both of his parents supported the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. At the age of 18, Suárez was president of the Ávila chapter of Catholic Action. He studied law at the University of Salamanca, after which he took a job at the municipal government of Ávila in 1955. He subsequently became a member of Opus Dei, and obtained a doctorate at the Central University of Madrid. He also worked briefly as a porter at Madrid's Atocha railway station.

In 1958, Suárez became the personal secretary of Fernando Herrero Tejedor, the newly appointed civil governor of Ávila. When Tejedor was made deputy secretary-general of the Movimiento Nacional in 1961, Suárez became his chef de cabinet. He gradually rose through the ranks of the Movimiento. In 1965, Suárez was appointed programme director of the state broadcaster Radio y Televisión Española (RTVE). In 1967, he was elected to the Francoist Cortes. In 1968, Suárez was promoted to civil governor and provincial head of the Movimiento in Segovia. In 1969, he was made director general of RTVE. Under this capacity, he became a close friend to future king Prince Juan Carlos.

In March 1975, Herrero Tejedor became secretary-general of the Movimiento while Suárez was appointed deputy secretary-general. Herrero Tejedor was considered a likely candidate for prime minister until his death in a car accident in June. In December, shortly after Francisco Franco's death, Suárez was promoted to secretary-general by prime minister Carlos Arias Navarro, and became a member of Arias's cabinet. In the same year, he also became a founding member of the Spanish People's Union (Unión del Pueblo Español, UDPE).

In July 1976, King Juan Carlos requested the resignation of Arias. The relatively obscure Suárez was chosen as the new Prime Minister of Spain, surprising many observers. At the age of 43, he was Spain's youngest prime minister in the 20th century. Due to his Francoist ties, Suárez enjoyed the trust of the political right, while the reformists were dismayed by his appointment. Nevertheless, it was noted that due to his age (he turned 7 years old the year that the civil war ended), Suárez was not as strongly associated with the bloody Civil War or the most brutal years of Franco's rule as the older politicians.

Within a year of his appointment, Suárez had rapidly introduced reform measures and taken decisive steps in Spain's transition to democracy (La Transición). The Political Reform Act, which permitted universal suffrage and established the basis for a new, bicameral parliament, was passed by a huge majority in the Francoist Cortes in November 1976 and overwhelmingly approved by a referendum in December. Suárez managed to placate the conservative military officers, while also reaching out to Felipe González's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and later, Santiago Carrillo's Communist Party of Spain (PCE). Between February and April 1977, the PSOE and the PCE were both legalised, trade unions were recognised, and the Movimiento was abolished. The legalisation of the PCE in particular provoked fury in the Spanish military; Suárez responded by sacking hardliners and promoting more liberal officers such as Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado. On 15 June, Suárez led the Union of the Democratic Centre (Unión de Centro Democrático, UCD) to victory in Spain's first free elections in 41 years, and became the first democratically elected prime minister of the post-Francoist Spain.

In 1978, during Suárez's premiership, Spain voted in the United Nations General Assembly condemning human rights abuses in Chile, thus distancing Spain from the Francoist-influenced military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.