[Marxism] Zapatero wins Spain vote with modest margin over Fraga

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

March 9, 2008

Socialists Win Spanish Election, Retaining Power 

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

MADRID ? Spain?s ruling Socialists triumphed in a national election on
Sunday, giving Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a fresh mandate
to pursue his agenda of sweeping social and political liberalization. 

 

The outcome was a validation of Mr. Zapatero?s boldest decisions, including
the withdrawal of Spain?s troops from Iraq, the granting of more autonomy to
Spain?s regions, and changes that include fast-track divorce and the
legalization of same-sex marriage. 

 

?I will govern by continuing with the things that we?ve done well and
correcting mistakes,? Mr. Zapatero said in accepting victory outside his
party headquarters. He added, ?I will govern for all, but thinking above all
of those people who do not have everything.? 

 

In particular, Mr. Zapatero said he would work to fulfill the aspirations of
women and young people and provide more support for the country?s elderly.

 

With 96 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Zapatero?s party won 43.7 percent
of the vote, and the conservative Popular Party 40.1 percent, according to
the Interior Ministry.

 

Turnout was high ? an estimated 75.4 percent of the country?s 35 million
eligible voters ? only a shade below the 75.7 percent turnout in 2004. 

 

The election was a rematch of the bitter contest four years ago between Mr.
Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy [not the ex-Franco minister Fraga, as I misread
in David?s article-FF], the head of the Popular Party.

 

Throughout the last four years, Mr. Rajoy and his party called into doubt
Mr. Zapatero?s legitimacy and relentlessly tried to block his ambitious
progressive agenda.

 

So it was not surprising that in his speech conceding defeat on Sunday
night, Mr. Rajoy stood firm on principle, but said nothing about the need
for national unity. ?Everyone knows we are predictable,? he said. ?Everyone
knows what we stand for. Everyone knows what I believe in.? 

 

Mr. Zapatero appealed for a high turnout as he voted Sunday morning at a
polling station near Moncloa Palace, the official residence. 

 

?Spain is stronger if democracy is stronger; democracy is stronger if all
citizens turn out to vote, to exercise our right to choose the future of our
country,? he said. 

 

Spain is perhaps more polarized politically now than it has been in decades,
and when Mr. Zapatero emerged, he was met with both hearty applause and
angry shouts of ?Out! Out! Out!? 

 

The voting was overshadowed by the slaying of a Socialist politician in the
Basque region on Friday, a killing that both the government and the
opposition blamed on the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA. But it is too
soon to say what impact the slaying may have had on the vote. 

 

After casting his ballot, Mr. Rajoy expressed hope that the will of the
people would prevail ? without disruption. ?All I wish is that the only news
today is that we have held elections, and that those who the people of Spain
want to win will win,? he said.

 

But the atmosphere was significantly calmer than election day four years
ago.

 

It was then that Mr. Zapatero unexpectedly swept into power after many
Spaniards who had considered staying home turned out instead to deliver a
message of anger against the conservative government of the Popular Party.

 

Three days before that election, Madrid was struck by terrorist bombings
that left 191 people dead. Voters blamed the government for its
participation in the American-led occupation in Iraq and its deception in
dismissing evidence that radical Islamists, not ETA militants, were
responsible. 

 

In the months before this election, Mr. Zapatero held a small but steady
lead in all opinion polling. 

 

In casting their ballots, many voters expressed both frustration with the
political infighting that has dominated the campaign and worry about the
sudden downturn in the Spanish economy.

 

In the affluent Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca, Gloria Perez, a
58-year-old librarian, said the poor economic performance of Mr. Zapatero?s
government prompted her to shift her vote this time from the Socialists to
the United Left, which is led by the Communist Party. 

 

?Zapatero has not done enough to bring down the price of rents, control
mortgage costs, help young people and get us workers better salaries,? Ms.
Perez said. She added that she was unimpressed by tax incentives offered by
both of the main parties, including the Socialists? promise to give every
taxpayer a tax rebate of 400 euros (about $600). 

 

?What good is 400 euros going to do me?? she said. ?That?s bread today,
hunger tomorrow. We need reforms that will help us in the long term: better
work contracts, better salaries, less inflation.?

 

Gloria Logares, a 65-year-old homemaker, cast her vote for the Popular Party
as she has in the past, branding the Socialist government soft on terrorism
for holding talks with ETA. ?Four years ago, we were voting with death
hanging over us, and here we are with death hanging over us again,? she
said. ?People are voting in a climate of terror. This is the price we pay
for negotiating with terrorists.?

 

Mr. Zapatero both won and lost voters over his ambitious social and
political agenda that has ushered in such changes as the legalization of gay
marriage, fast-track divorce, recognition for the victims of the fascist
Franco dictatorship and more autonomy for some of Spain?s 17 regions. 

 

?Zapatero has given us more rights than any leader to the people of Spain:
the old, the young, gays, men, women,? said Santiago Cruz, 69, a retired
plumber who lives in the working-class Madrid suburb of Vallecas, which has
a large immigrant population. ?I grew up under Franco with no rights. I grew
up having to sing Franco?s anthem so that his fascist supporters would throw
me scraps of cabbage.? 

 

Other voters claimed that Mr. Zapatero?s social changes were destroying
Spain?s value system. 

 

?Zapatero is breaking with the traditional Christian values that we have
espoused our whole lives,? said Miguel María Santos de Quevedo, a 76-year
old retired notary in Tomares, a town in Andalucía, who voted for the
Popular Party. ?He wants to impose his relativist values on everyone, to
claim that there is no such thing as good and bad.?

 

The election of the prime minister involves a complicated process in which
voters do not vote for one candidate but for one party list of candidates
for deputies in Parliament. 

 

Voters had the choice of more than two dozen party lists, including
mainstream parties like the Popular and Socialist parties and tiny ones like
the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain and the rightist Falange, which
opposes immigration and supports the memory of the late dictator Gen.
Francisco Franco. 

 

A small new party headed by a Socialist former lawmaker who broke with Mr.
Zapatero because of his negotiations with ETA also ran in the election.

 

Victoria Burnett contributed reporting.

 

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