11 March 2008: Spain’s ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) handily won national elections Sunday, March 9 increasing the number of seats it holds in parliament. However, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is still seven seats short of an absolute majority and will have to cobble together a coalition with small regional parties.

The conservative Popular Party (PP) actually picked up more seats than the Socialists with five more deputies than in the last elections in 2004. Opposition leader Mariano Rajoy is not facing any calls for him to resign but he is not expected to run in the next elections. The PP now has 153 deputies to the PSOE’s 169 in the 350-seat Cortes.

Political violence on the eve of the elections did not have the same effect as the 2004 Madrid train bombings, when Mr. Zapatero beat the PP’s Jose Maria Aznar. In his first term Mr. Zapatero did not enjoy full legitimacy but this month’s win has given him a solid mandate. The high turnout of just over 75 percent was likely affected by the murder of a Socialist councilor two days before the vote. The Basque separatist group ETA was blamed for the shooting of Isaias Carrasco in front of his wife and daughter in the Basque town of Arrasate.

Mr. Zapatero’s failed cease-fire with ETA in 2006 and policy of dialogue was not the only election issue. The prime minister is trying to deal with rising unemployment and inflation; the Spanish economy has grown by a robust four percent over the last decade but economists now expect only half of that.

The biggest surprises of the election were the gains made by the Socialists at the expense of the smaller regional Basque and Catalonian parties. This is the first time that a national party has won support in the regions. However, the Basque Nationalist Party will apparently go ahead with its unconstitutional independence referendum.

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