Councillor's murder overshadows Spanish election

Spaniards are voting today in a general election overshadowed by a killing blamed on Basque separatists that evoked memories of the 2004 election in which Islamic militants killed 191 people in bombings aimed at bringing down a conservative government.

Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, elected after those attacks, is seeking a second term and favoured slightly over the conservative Popular Party led by Mariano Rajoy, who lost in 2004.

The campaign had been dominated by concerns over the Spanish economy, one of Europe’s great success stories with more than a decade of robust growth. But now it is cooling amid rising unemployment and high inflation and an end to a boom in the construction sector, the main engine of growth.

Both main parties also clashed over immigration, with the conservatives saying Zapatero had made Spain a magnet for destitute foreigners in search of a better life, and vowing to make immigrants sign a contract obliging them to respect Spanish customs and learn the language. Zapatero’s party called this position xenophobic.

Two polls released on Monday – the last day pre-election surveys could be published – gave Zapatero’s party a four percentage-point lead over the conservatives.

But that was before Friday’s killing of Isaias Carrasco, a former Socialist councillor in the Basque town of Mondragon, in a shooting blamed on the militant Basque separatist group ETA.

No one expects the tide-turning upheaval of 2004.

The conservatives in power at the time were voted out of power amid outrage over their insistence ETA was to blame for the Madrid train bombings three days earlier, even as evidence of Islamic involvement mounted. Many Spaniards saw this as a government ploy designed to dispel the idea that its support for the Iraq war had made Spain an al Qaida target.

But commentators say it is conceivable the killing could give some kind of boost to either of the two main parties: sympathy benefiting Zapatero, or a backlash against him for having negotiated in vain with ETA in 2006.

Security forces are on maximum alert and turnout is seen as key; popular wisdom says the higher it is, the more this will benefit the Socialists. Their backers are seen as more prone to abstention, whereas conservative supporters are more loyal to their party and likely to get out and vote.

There are 35.1 million eligible voters in Spain.

At stake are the 350-seat Congress of Deputies, the lower chamber of parliament, and the 208-seat Senate. It is the lower house toll that decides who forms the next government.