The King did not initially appoint a new prime minister, leaving in place the incumbent head of government under Franco, Carlos Arias Navarro. Arias Navarro had not initially planned a reform of the Francoist regime; in the National Council of the Movement, an advisory assembly of the ruling "FET y de las JONS" ("Falange") party and other groups in the "Movimiento Nacional", he declared that the purpose of his government was the continuity of Francoism through a "democracy in the Spanish way" (). He believed political changes should be limited: he would give the parliament, the "Cortes Españolas", the task of "updating our laws and institutions the way Franco would have wanted".