[8] His son and Mariano's father, Lázaro Zufía Saenz (1892-1958) was born already in the Navarrese capital;[9] he had to earn a living at the young age and became a railway man, rising to “jefe de estación” in Andoain, Leiza and Pamplona-Empalme.

[13] Following 2 years he resigned religious career and entered Instituto of Pamplona; the civil war broke out when Zufía was in midst of bachillerato course.

[26] Already in his early teens the young Mariano engaged in the movement; he joined Muthiko Alaiak, the folk group animated by the iconic Pamplonese Carlist Ignacio Baleztena, he played football in the amateur team formed by boys from the local Carlist círculo,[27] entered Agrupación Escolar Tradicionalista and took part in school strikes of 1935–1936, staged as protests against what was perceived as anti-religious educational policy of the Republic.

[28] A later hagiographic biography underlines Zufía's Catholic conviction as the key motive behind his political choice, and suggests that it outweighed some socialist leaning, took after his maternal uncle.

Zufía refused to accept the unification into Falange Española Tradicionalista; at the time he was in personal entourage of José María Zaldivar Arenzana, the fiercely anti-falangist AET jefe.

[32] When released from a new period of military service, spent in the Canary Islands as at the time Spain feared Allied invasion on the archipelago,[33] in 1944 he was taking part in anti-Francoist rallies, staged in Pamplona.

[39] In the late 1950s he started to give lectures himself, e.g. on pre-marital preparatory courses organized by parishes, and joined Acción Católica de Medios Sociales Independientes.

[40] In 1960 Zufía for the first time aspired to public post; he headed a list of Carlist candidates, who from the so-called tercio familiar pool and on a hardly veiled anti-Francoist ticket ran for the Pamplona town hall.

On the one hand, he cultivated Traditionalist features when engaged in religious initiatives, be it as member of Consejo Pastoral or Junta Diocesana Económica; he even drafted new economic scheme for local parishes, the plan well received by the archbishop.

[57] Since the late 1960s Zufía, deputy director of the Pamplona Banco de Bilbao branch and member of the city council, was a recognized and well-positioned figure in Navarre; as such he started frequenting meetings of the carlohuguista command group, organized across the border in Arbonne.

[59] Following reformatting of Carlist structures into Partido Carlista, in 1970[60] or 1971[61] he entered so-called Gabinete Ideológico, a doctrinal council of the organization; Zufía formed part of a 3-member Comisión Delegada for socio-economic studies.

In late 1971 two Carlist members of the outgoing Cortes, José Zubiaur and Auxilio Goñi, refused to sign an in-blanco resignation, required by Carlos Hugo as a condition of their endorsement in the forthcoming elections.

[69] In 1973 he refused to sign a town hall declaration which condemned the ETA attempt against Carrero Blanco; formal investigation has been launched against him, but it produced no repressive measures.

[73] During final years of Francoism Zufía and his sons[74] were heavily engaged in numerous semi-clandestine activities, e.g. since 1974 in his house he hosted the editorial board of a bulletin titled Denok batean and provided residence to its chief editor.

[75] In establishment circles he was viewed as a dangerous subversive; in spite of earlier arrangements he was not promoted to director of the Banco de Bilbao Pamplonese branch.

[82] Like most of PC leaders he advanced a so-called rupturista strategy; Zufía called for a radical, revolutionary change of political regime instead of gradual transformation into democracy.

As member of “ponencia redactora del Estatuto de Autonomía”[97] Zufía claimed that Navarre “belongs to the Basque Country”[98] and opted for a common Basque-Navarrese unit,[99] but given limited support in the region he started to backtrack.

[106] Following disastrous electoral result of 1979 most PC high executives, including its president Carlos Hugo and the secretary general José María Zavala, resigned.

Zufía – who stood out among mostly 30- and 40-year-olds,[110] former requeté, man of proven party record, longtime Navarrese official, member of Parlamento Foral and a local known personality - was elected the new secretario general.

He continued to focus on social problems and advocated setup of Cámara Económico-Social,[114] animated emergence of a regional secular Navarrese university[115] and confronted the Right.

[116] Particular controversy was triggered by his support for Herri Batasuna motion that the Franco-awarded laurel be removed from the Navarrese flag;[117] Traditionalist groupings denied him the name of a Carlist and wondered “if he retained a sole drop of the blood of the ancient and true Carlism of God, Fatherland, Fueros, and King”, effectively lambasting him as a traitor.

Zufía led the Carlist list[129] and failed; hence, his term of the Parlamento Foral member came to the end and Partido Carlista lost its only representative in self-governmental Navarrese structures.

He was entitled to re-election, but Zufía decided not to stand; he claimed that 10 years in office was long enough and that to ensure sanity in public administration, he should provide an example and resign.

[136] On retirement he engaged in charity; his focus was mostly on Junta de la Fundación Tutelar Navarra, an organization serving the incapacitated; in 1993 he was elected its president.

[138] In the mid-1980s he supported Partido Carlista entry into a Communist-dominated Izquierda Unida, but following another disastrous general elections he concluded that PC had been cynically manipulated by the likes of Santiago Carillo.

He remained proud of his past in the Carlist ranks and noted that though defeated as a rupturista strategy in the 1970s, at least carlohuguista progressism reclaimed Carlism from the ultra-reactionaries.

In 2007 Fundación para la Formación e Investigación en Auditoría del Sector Público FIASEP, an independent institution promoting transparency in public finances, set up Premio Mariano Zufía; on irregular basis it is awarded since 2009.

[144] On some websites related to Partido Carlista he is recorded as the former party leader and a distinguished personality, especially that until today he remains the only PC representative who has ever been elected to either a regional or the national parliament.

[145] In historiographic works addressing either Carlism or the Spanish transición he appears marginally as a person who presided over disintegration of Partido Carlista into a third-rate political force.