after the ruling centre-right coalition collapsed amid the Straperlo corruption scandal, new elections were scheduled. Two wide coalitions formed: the Popular Front on the left, ranging from Republican Union Party to Communists, and the Frente Nacional on the right, ranging from the center radicals to the conservative Carlists. On 16 February 1936, the left won by a narrow margin.[22] Growing political bitterness surfaced again. The government and its supporters, the Popular Front, had launched a campaign against the Opposition whom they accused of plotting against the Republic.[citation needed] According to the right wing opposition, the real enemies of the Republic were not on the Right but on the Left; Spain was in imminent danger of falling under a "Communist dictatorship", and therefore by fighting the democratically elected Popular Front they, the opposition, were merely doing their duty in defence of law and order and of the freedom and the fundamental rights of the Spanish people