Spain's Governing Party Defeated
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| Sun, 03-14-2004 - 10:52pm |
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Following Attacks, Spain's Governing Party Is Beaten
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
MADRID, March 14 — Spain's opposition Socialists swept to an upset victory in general elections on Sunday, ousting the center-right party of Prime Minister José MarÃa Aznar in a groundswell of voter anger and grief over his handling of terrorist bombings in Madrid last week.
Those bombings, the deadliest terror attack in Europe since World War II, turned on its head what had just a few days ago been a predictable victory by Mr. Aznar's Popular Party. Some voters apparently believed that Al Qaeda had plotted the attacks to punish Mr. Aznar for supporting the war, which Spaniards overwhelmingly opposed.
With each new bit of information about the investigation into the attack came accusations that Mr. Aznar's party may have tried to suppress evidence of possible Qaeda involvement by assuming that Basque separatists were responsible.
New connections between Al Qaeda and a Moroccan suspect in the attacks emerged Sunday. The suspect, one of five men held by the police, had been linked more than two years ago to a suspected cell of Al Qaeda that operated in Spain, according to documents and government officials. No definitive conclusion has been made about responsibility for the attack.
The Socialist victory was seen as a repudiation of Mr. Aznar, whose party has been in office for eight years, and his close bonds with President Bush. It also posed a new problem for the American-led occupation force in Iraq, where Spain has 1,300 troops, because the Socialists have said they will withdraw them in the absence of a clear United Nations mandate.
Rage at the government overshadowed Election Day. Protesters shouted "Liar!" and "Get our troops out of Iraq!" at the Popular Party candidate Mariano Rajoy, the 48-year-old lawyer who had been expected to be Mr. Aznar's successor, as he voted at a Madrid polling station.
José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, the 43-year-old lawyer who will become prime minister, accepted victory at his party's campaign headquarters by asking for a moment of silence for the bombing victims.
He called for "restrained euphoria" in light of the bombings, which killed 200 people and wounded 1,500 on four commuter trains in Madrid on Thursday.
"Terror should know that it has all of us in front of it and we will conquer it," he said. "I will lead a quiet change. I will govern for all in unity. And power will not change me, I promise you that."
In his speech conceding defeat, Mr. Rajoy praised Mr. Zapatero as a "worthy opponent" and pledged that the Popular Party would be "a loyal opposition always serving the interests of Spain."
But Mr. Rajoy noted that the election had been "inexorably marked by the atrocious attack" of terrorism. Mr. Aznar, who had hand-picked Mr. Rajoy as his successor, stood solemnly at his side.
The arrest of three Moroccans and two Indians and an official announcement, just hours before the polls opened, of a videotape in which a man claimed that Al Qaeda had carried out the bombings prompted accusations that the government was lying when it claimed that the violent Basque separatist movement ETA was most likely responsible.
In November, Mr. Zapatero called for the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq after the death of seven Spanish secret service agents in an ambush. More recently, he softened his position, saying that if he won the election, he would withdraw the troops at the end of June unless a United Nations-led force took charge.
He also said during the campaign that Mr. Aznar's government had slavishly followed the United States, deepened European divisions over the war and damaged Spain's relationship with France and Germany.
The governing party "has gambled everything on its blind support for the United States, or rather the Bush administration, at the price of weakening the bond between Spain and Europe," he said in January.
According to official election figures, the Socialists won 43 percent of the vote and 164 seats in the 350-member Chamber of Deputies; the Popular Party won 38 percent of the vote and 148 seats.
Both the Popular Party and the biggest left-wing party, United Left, lost support to the Socialists. In 2000, the Popular Party won 183 seats, compared with 125 for the Socialists.
The Socialists were short of the 176 seats to have a majority necessary to form a government, which means it must create a coalition with another party or parties.
Mr. Aznar will remain the head of government until a new government is formed, which, under complicated electoral rules and the Constitution, could take about three months.
The turnout was higher than expected. More than 77 percent of the country's 35 million eligible voters cast ballots, compared with 55 percent four years ago. In Madrid, the figure was 80 percent.
In a television appearance on Saturday night, Mr. Rajoy alienated some voters when he called spontaneous antigovernment rallies that brought thousands of people to the streets of Madrid "serious antidemocratic events that never before happened in the history of our democracy." He added, "Their aim is to influence and pressure the will of voters throughout the day of reflection."
At a polling station in Cozlada, a tight-knit working-class suburb east of Madrid where all four of the attacked trains had passed, there seemed not to be one person who did not know someone who had died.
"Our prime minister has gotten us into a terrible, completely wrong war," Vanessa Bellón, a 23-year-old preschool teacher with a piercing near her lower lip, said as she voted there for the United Left Party. "And because of it, I spent yesterday and today going to funerals. I am thinking of a 3-year-old child at my school who no longer has a mother."
That anger was echoed in the trendy Calle Fuencarral neighborhood of central Madrid. "We've enough of this government," said Nayra Delgado, a 31-year-old documentary filmmaker who voted for the Socialists. "It's too much. They think they are kings in this country."
At El Pozo train station, where one of the terrorist attacks occurred, the walls were covered with graffiti that read, "Aznar Killer," and "No to Terrorism." A sea of red candles and bouquets of flowers were haphazardly arranged in tribute to the victims. Just across the street, the polling station was set up in a school, some of whose students had lost parents in the attacks.
"I certainly did not vote for the Popular Party," said a 79-year-old retired carpenter who identified himself only as Julián. "My daughter's hand was cut off, and she almost lost a part of her leg. Aznar should come here to see that, to see these people. But he did nothing for us. He did nothing for the poor. He is one who brought us to war. I went through the civil war, and the postwar. But this is worse."
A 26-year-old window frame maker, who identified himself only as David, said he had changed his vote from Popular Party to Socialist because of the bombings and the war in Iraq. "Maybe the Socialists will get our troops out of Iraq, and Al Qaeda will forget about Spain, so we will be less frightened," he said. "A bit of us died in the train."
Addressing both Mr. Aznar and Mr. Rajoy, he said, "I tell them, come to our neighborhoods, we will tell you some things about life, about these poor people who died."
In conservative pockets of the country, people argued that stability, not change, was needed at this time of crisis. In the 12th-century, walled, hilltop city of Ãvila, the hometown of St. Teresa, voters said they had cast their ballots as they always did — for the Popular Party.
Ãvila is part of a conservative Catholic region, where people call the terrorist bombings a sin and call for swift vengeance. Here, the terrorist attacks have caused people to dig their conservative roots even deeper.
"I feel rage and impotence at the attacks," said Pedro GarcÃa, a 57-year-old civil servant. "But it's better to follow the same political line. You can't have people fleeing in all directions. It shows immaturity."
The election of the prime minister involved a complicated process in which voters did not vote for one candidate but for one party list of candidates for deputies in Parliament.
Voters had the choice of 28 party lists, including mainstream parties like the Popular and Socialist parties and tiny ones like the leftist Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain and the rightist Falange, which opposes immigration and supports the memory of the late dictator Franco.
The Party for Romantic Mutual Support and the Party of Retired Self-Employed and Widows were among the others on the ballot.
There was little chance of secret ballots; lists were laid out on open tables in polling stations.
Voters also cast their ballots for a maximum of three candidates for the Senate, a body that wields little power.
Hélène Fouquet and Dale Fuchs contributed reporting for this article.
http://nytimes.com/2004/03/15/international/europe/15SPAI.html?pagewanted=1&hp

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>"I believed that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attack in Spain, because of the date and coordination of the explosions. But in light of these election results, I can see why the government wanted to blame ETA."<
I agree with you, so does Castro. ;)
>"The Party for Romantic Mutual Support and the Party of Retired Self-Employed and Widows were among the others on the ballot. "<
The Spanish have some interesting political party names. I wish the US had more options than the existing two party system.
>"Cuban President Fidel Castro, however, accused the Spanish government of deceiving its citizens about the train bombings -- which killed 200 people and injured a further 1,500 -- to ensure victory in Sunday's general elections."<
Quote from "
World solidarity for Madrid victims"..............http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/03/14/spain.blasts.world.ap/index.html
The loss could also be attributed to the unfavourable war in Iraq.
>"Turnout was high at 76 percent with voters seeming to express anger with the government, accusing it of provoking the Madrid attacks by supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which most Spaniards opposed."<
>"The upset was widely interpreted as a rebuke to Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's strong support for U.S. President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, which 90 percent of Spaniards opposed.
It was also seen as a criticism of the Spanish government's handling of last week's bomb blasts. Initially, government authorities said they suspected the Basque separatist group ETA -- whose terrorist attacks the ruling party has staunchly put down in recent years.
But later evidence has pointed to al Qaeda members as the possible attackers."<
Quotes from "
Spain PM-elect: Troops out of Iraq"..........http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/03/15/spain.election/index.html
You're correct it could be a 'joint' attack or a red herring.
Perhaps a red herring, or the attack reminded the Spanish that they didn't want to be involved in Iraq.
Blow to Bush: An Ally in Spain Is Rejected by Antiwar Voters
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: March 15, 2004
ASHINGTON, March 14 — The ouster of the center-right party in Spain, only days after a terrorist bombing that may be linked to Al Qaeda, is the first electoral rebuke of one of President Bush's most steadfast allies in the Iraq war.
When France and Germany balked at supporting the war on Iraq, the Spanish prime minister, José María Aznar, stood publicly by Mr. Bush at a summit meeting in the Azores a year ago this week, and just days before the war began. Now voters have elected the opposition Socialists, although the center right was leading in the polls until the terrorist attack.
The Bush administration must now fight the perception, accurate or not, that acts of terror against America's allies can sway nations into rethinking the wisdom of standing too closely with Mr. Bush.
Time after time, President Bush has responded to critics who say he has alienated America's closest allies by pointing to Mr. Aznar as a courageous example of a leader who ignored poll numbers — upward of 90 percent of Spaniards opposed the war — and who acted in Spain's best interests.
Only last week several senior members of the administration said they fully expected that his conservatives would emerge victorious. In fact, months ago a senior adviser to Mr. Bush predicted that should a terrorist attack occur in Europe, it would probably drive the Europeans closer to the United States and its approach to the campaign against terror, not away from it.
So on Sunday evening administration officials scrambled to hide their disappointment. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, leaving for India, declined to respond publicly to the Socialists' victory, and the White House drafted a positive-sounding statement saying President Bush looked forward to working with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist leader who will now become prime minister.
But it was lost on no one in Mr. Bush's inner circle that Mr. Zapatero rode to victory by denouncing Mr. Bush's approach to the world, and that he pledged to bring home Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq in July. "We don't know how big a factor the Madrid bombing was in the outcome," one senior American official said. "We don't know that what happened in Spain marks a broader trend. But I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said this is the kind of outcome we might have wished for."
Administration officials said this weekend that they were offering Spain all the help they could to determine who was behind the bombings, and whether Al Qaeda's claim of responsibility was credible. But now, Mr. Bush faces the task of persuading a new Spanish leadership — the same politicians who argued that Mr. Aznar was far too close to Mr. Bush and his policy of pre-emption — that the only way to confront terrorism is to strike back.
Senior American diplomats were quick to note that even the Socialists had pledged to take part in peacekeeping in Iraq if the United Nations passed a resolution embracing the Iraqi transitional government, which is scheduled to take over from the Coalition Provisional Authority on June 30. Such a resolution seems highly likely.
In any case, Spain's contribution in Iraq is symbolic, less than 1 percent of the forces on the ground.
Before the election results were in, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," "I believe that the Spanish people understand that they've had strong and good leadership in President José María Aznar and his government, that fighting terrorism cannot allow one to be intimidated." She was referring to the prime minister.
A few moments later, after saying it was unclear whether the Spanish attacks were carried out by the domestic terror group ETA, by Al Qaeda, or by some combination, she said: "They will not win, and we will not falter. The idea that somehow someone stirring up a beehive of terrorists, creating terrorists where they all were not, simply ignores the history that goes back into the early '80s where a progression of terrorist incidents, terrorist activities, have gotten stronger."
It is too early to assess the full impact of the bombings on politics in Spain or the rest of Europe. At home, Mr. Bush's associates, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, are already using the Madrid bombings to reinforce their case that the world remains a very dangerous place, and that it would be enormously risky to depart from Mr. Bush's strategy.
On Sunday, Mr. Cheney cited the railway bombings in Madrid to attack the strategy of the presumptive Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
"Senator Kerry has said that we should treat attacks on our nation primarily as matters of law enforcement and intelligence," Mr. Cheney told an audience in Florence, Ky. "He's embraced the strategy of the 1990's, which holds that when we are attacked, we ought to round up those directly responsible, put them on trial, and then call it a day."
But such a strategy, he said, is insufficient because "it leaves the network behind the attacks virtually untouched." He concluded by noting that the attack in Spain "is a reminder that there are evil people in the world, capable of any atrocity, and determined to take innocent life."
Mr. Kerry is arguing that the administration is wildly oversimplifying his position, and he, too, would take the war to the terrorists. But he argues that he would do it in a way that preserves alliances and avoids the kind of reaction that Spanish voters expressed Sunday. "We can only fight terror with the help of our allies," he said in a recent interview and that means devising a strategy that keeps not only leaders like Mr. Aznar on Washington's side, but their constituencies as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/international/europe/15POLI.html?hp
>"Why is the press making the bombing in Spain a result of their ex leader's support for the war in Iraq and the war on terror?"<
Spain supported the US hence they're 'the enemy' of the terrorists.
>"The upset was widely interpreted as a rebuke to Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's strong support for U.S. President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, which 90 percent of Spaniards opposed."< (my post 6221.1)
If 90% of Spaniards disagreed with the invasion of Iraq ..... How else do you expect them to vote? For more of the same? I don't think so.
BTW Spain comprises only 1% of the troops in Iraq.
I think, if a connection is found, it may be the opposite of this - Al Qaeda infiltrating ETA.
C
I agree with you.
<>
The US has tried, but politics here has become a contact sport with winning as the ultimate goal - far more important than issues. Third parties exist to bring up issues, yet they are seen as "spoilers" taking votes from one of the two major parties. However, many of the issues that third parties champion are eventually addressed by one or both of the major parties.
C
Here's what I am getting at...I don't understand why the people of Spain would not want to defeat a brutal regime? A country who gives safe harbor to terrorists who hate freedom? I am so sick and tired of our President being blamed for everything. I don't really think a God fearing man would send our troops over to Iraq for no reason. I guess I do not understand the European way of thinking.
I guess I just don't understand your way of thinking.
James
janderson_ny@yahoo.com
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