Spain's Governing Party Defeated

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Registered: 03-25-2003
Spain's Governing Party Defeated
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Sun, 03-14-2004 - 10:52pm
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.

C

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 María 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 Rodríguez 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 Ávila, the hometown of St. Teresa, voters said they had cast their ballots as they always did — for the Popular Party.

Ávila 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 García, 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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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Tue, 03-16-2004 - 3:43pm
<>

Bush had a reason for invading Iraq, it just wasn't the reason that he provided to the world. In order to understand another POV you have to be willing to consider that POV, not just oppose it because it differs from yours.

Poll: Many think U.S. wants world domination

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Will Lester

March 16, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A majority of people living in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey say they believe the U.S. is conducting its campaign against terror to control Mideast oil and to dominate the world, according to an international poll released Tuesday.

The governments in all four Muslim-majority countries have strong ties with the U.S. government.

A sizable number of people in France, Germany and Russia also have these suspicions about the campaign against terror, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

The polls were taken in February, before the train bombings in Spain that claimed the lives of at least 200 people.



In a surprise defeat, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservatives on Sunday became the first government that backed Washington in Iraq to be voted from office.

When people in the nine countries -- including Britain and the United States -- were asked if the campaign against terrorism was a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism, majorities in France, Germany and the four Muslim-majority countries felt it was not. Almost half in Russia felt it was not, while majorities in Britain and the United States said they believe the campaign is a sincere effort to fight terrorism.

The surveys found considerable cynicism and anger among the Muslim-majority countries a year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And they found a growing desire among European countries for a balance of power between the European Union and the United States.

"Europeans want to check our power," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "There's considerable support for making the European Union as powerful as the United States."

Europeans in those countries are eager to set up security arrangements independent from the United States.

People in the surveyed Muslim countries remain angry about U.S. policies, and even supportive of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist who took credit for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Almost two-thirds of the people in Pakistan say they view bin Laden favorably -- a significant finding because U.S. troops are trying to find bin Laden in the mountainous region on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. More than half of those in Jordan and almost half of those polled in Morocco had a favorable view of the Saudi terrorist.

Anger toward the United States in these Muslim-majority countries remains very high, Kohut said, though the intensity has dropped a bit since last May.

While seven in 10 in the United States feel their country takes into account the interests of other countries when making international policy decisions, few in the other countries shared that view.

Majorities in all the countries except Pakistan, and almost half there, felt the United States doesn't make much of an effort to consider the interests of other countries in its policy decisions.

At least two-thirds of people living in France, Germany, Russia and Turkey thought it would be a good thing if the European Union becomes as powerful as the United States. Turkey and Russia are not currently members of the European Union.

A majority of those in Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Turkey think Western Europe should take a more independent approach to security and diplomatic matters.

In other key findings:

--While support for the war on terrorism has dropped in many of those countries, it has increased in Russia -- 73 percent approve -- and is almost as strong there as in the United States.

--About half in Pakistan said suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians against Israelis and against U.S. troops in Iraq can be justified. Two-thirds or more in Jordan and Morocco say it can be justified in both situations.

--A majority of the people in Pakistan and Jordan say Iraq will be worse off now that Saddam Hussein has been removed from power.

--A solid majority of those in France, Germany, Russia, Pakistan and Jordan believe United States President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair lied about the weapons of mass destruction they claimed were in Iraq."

Remainder of article at:

http://www.salonmag.com/news/wire/2004/03/16/poll/index.html



iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Tue, 03-16-2004 - 8:55pm
Great post.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 03-16-2004 - 10:48pm

Here in the US this country is divide just about 50-50 for/against Bush, therefore I don't believe it's a

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 03-17-2004 - 9:28am
With these numbers, I wonder if the UN will be able to get the votes to take over the reconstruction. I always felt it was because GWB wanted to dictate terms, but as June 30th grows near, he may relent, but will he have any takers?

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