[news] Spaniards oust ruling party in wake of terrorist attacks

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Globe and Mail	   March 15, 2004 - Page A1

Spaniards oust ruling party in wake of terrorist attacks

Widespread belief of lying by government prompts angry voters to turn to
Socialists

By Alan Freeman

Madrid -- Angry Spanish voters, traumatized by Thursday's terrorist attacks
in Madrid, threw out the governing party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar
in the national election yesterday, dealing a new blow to the U.S.-led
coalition occupying Iraq.

The Socialist opposition, which only days ago was widely expected to lose
the election, roared to victory over the governing Popular Party. The
Socialists captured 164 seats in the 350-seat lower assembly, while the
governing party won 148.

The dramatic reversal was tied to the widespread belief that the government
had tried to manipulate public opinion in the wake of Thursday's bombings at
Madrid railway stations, which killed 200 and injured close to 1,500.

Mr. Aznar and his ministers were quick to lay blame for the attack on the
militant Basque separatist group ETA, despite the suspicions of many that
the bombings were the work of al-Qaeda, or a related group, in response to
Spain's support of the Iraq war.

The announcement over the weekend that police had arrested three Moroccans
and two Indian citizens in connection with the train attacks, and the
discovery of a videotape by a purported al-Qaeda spokesman claiming
responsibility for the attacks, persuaded many voters they had been lied to.


"They didn't tell us the truth about the attacks. They didn't say everything
they knew," said Clemente Torres, a 41-year-old graphic designer, who said
he voted for the first time yesterday to punish the government for its
handling of the bombings. "They tried to manipulate us by lying."

Mr. Torres said he does not believe ETA was responsible for the attacks. "I
think it was al-Qaeda, taking revenge on Spain for supporting the war in
Iraq."

It was a humiliating result for Mr. Aznar, who had planned an elegant
retirement from politics after two terms in office and a seamless handover
to his lacklustre successor, Mariano Rajoy.

The election will also weaken the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq because Jose
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the 43-year-old Socialist leader who now becomes
prime minister, has vowed to withdraw Spain's 1,300 soldiers from Iraq by
June 30 unless the United Nations is running the country by then. Opinion
polls showed as many as 90 per cent of Spaniards opposed the war, in which
11 Spaniards have died.

Mr. Aznar's high-profile support of U.S. President George W. Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair in invading Iraq was widely opposed by
Spanish voters, and that anti-war sentiment is also believed to have
contributed to his party's defeat.

"No to the War," chanted hundreds of jubilant Socialist supporters outside
the party's headquarters in downtown Madrid last night.

The Spanish vote marks the first time a government that supported the war in
Iraq has been thrown out of office and will deliver a sobering message to
Mr. Bush, who faces re-election in November, and to Mr. Blair, who is being
subjected to increasingly harsh criticism over his handling of the war.

In his victory speech, Mr. Zapatero, a lawyer who has led the Socialists for
three years, promised to make the fight against terrorism his top priority.
He called the win a victory for democracy over fear.

"My most immediate priority is to beat all forms of terrorism," Mr. Zapatero
said, asking for a minute's silence in honour of those who were killed and
injured in the bombings on four packed commuter trains.

With 99 per cent of the votes counted, official results showed the
Socialists with 43 per cent of the vote, compared with 38 per cent for the
PP. Winning 164 seats leaves the Socialists short of an absolute majority of
176, meaning they will probably need help from another party to form a
government.

Turnout was high, at 76 per cent of the country's 34 million voters.

Mr. Zapatero inherits a country that is deeply divided and confused over who
is to blame for Thursday's unprecedented attacks. He is expected to pull
Spain back from its close alliance with the United States and align it more
closely with the European Union on foreign affairs and the war in Iraq.

Some supporters of the Socialist party had trouble believing they had won.

"It's a surprise for me and for my friends," said Francisco de Castro, a
28-year-old student. He said the government's handling of the bombing's
aftermath had proven they were liars. "I believe that they manipulate
information."

"This is a punishment for the Popular Party and for Mr. Aznar and Mr. Rajoy
got caught in the middle," said Eduardo Nolla, a political scientist at
Madrid San Pablo University. He said the government should have delayed the
election after the bombings.

"Could you imagine an election in the U.S. on Sept. 14?" Mr. Nolla said,
drawing a parallel between the mood of Spaniards after the train bombings
and that of Americans after the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. He
called yesterday's election "an exceptional situation with an exceptional
result."

But Gerardo Galeote, who represents the Popular Party in the European
Parliament, said that it would have been a mistake to delay the elections.
"We shouldn't adapt our calendar to suit the terrorists. This is a free
election and we have our free elections."

Late Saturday night, the Interior Ministry announced that five men were
being held on suspicion of involvement in the sale and falsification of a
cellphone found in an unexploded bomb in a backpack on one of the trains.
Yesterday, officials were examining videotape, discovered in a garbage can
near a Madrid mosque on Saturday, in which a man speaking Arabic says the
al-Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the attack.

The man, who said he was speaking for Abu Dujan al-Afghani, who he said is
the military spokesman of al-Qaeda in Europe, referred to Iraq and
Afghanistan, where Spanish troops are deployed.

"If you don't stop your injustices, more blood will flow and these attacks
are very small compared with what may happen with what you call terrorism,"
he said, according to a transcript in Spanish from the Interior Ministry.
The tape was not released.

Yesterday, a Basque-language daily published a statement by ETA in which the
group, for the second time, denied involvement in the attacks.


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