Raimundo Fernández-Cuesta y Merelo (5 October 1896, Madrid – 9 July 1992, Madrid) was a leading Spanish politician with both the Falange and its successor movement the Spanish Traditionalist Phalanx of the Assemblies of National-Syndicalist Offensive.
A native of Madrid, Fernández-Cuesta studied at the local university, where he gained a law degree. He was a close friend of José Antonio Primo de Rivera from childhood.
An early member of the Falange, which he joined in 1933, he served as the movement's first secretary and garnered a reputation as one of the new group's most effective public speakers. He was a candidate for the Falange at the 1936 election, although he was not elected.
Fernández-Cuesta was imprisoned upon the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War by Republicans and, although he escaped twice, was recaptured on both occasions. He was released from captivity in October 1937 when he was involved in a prisoner swap with Justino de Azcárate, who was held by the Nationalists. Soon after his release he was appointed Secretary general of the unified Falangist-Carlist movement although he did not prove talented as a political organiser and was replaced in the role by Agustín Muñoz Grandes in 1939. His appointment as leader was largely intended to keep onside Falangists who feared the influence of both the Army and monarchism on Franco, but the role proved to have little power since real influence over Franco was instead to lie with Ramón Serrano Súñer.
Within this early Burgos-based government of Francisco Franco, he also fulfilled the role of Agriculture Minister. This too however proved to be largely a failed endeavour.
Such was the influence of Súñer that, after the Spanish Civil War, he engineered the effective exile of his rival Fernández-Cuesta, who was appointed Spanish ambassador first to Brazil (1940–1942) and then to Italy (1942–1945). Alongside this, Fernández-Cuesta's reputation was damaged by his failure in the Agriculture portfolio, with Spain facing famine in the 1940s largely as a consequence of the failed policies he had previously adopted in the role. Nevertheless, his personal loyalty to Franco was never less than absolute, a fact that ensured he would never be fully excluded from positions of influence.