With less than two months to go for the March 9 parliamentary elections, Spain's ruling Socialist party is flexing its muscles in a bid to repeat the 2004 electoral victory.
The efforts of the government under Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are currently focused on two fronts: anti-terrorism and the economy. During the last general elections, the party capitalized on the wave of anti-terrorism sentiment in the country, which helped it sweep to power.
GOVERNMENT TOUGHENS STANCE ON ETA
When campaigning for the 2004 elections, Zapatero pledged to bring peace to Spain which has been plagued by violence and bloodshed since 1968 when the Basque separatists took up arms in a campaign for an independent Basque country.
However, after peace talks with ETA ground to a halt, the opposition level led criticism at the government, accusing it of adopting a soft-handed approach in dealing with the separatists.
Scrambling to shed such an image, Zapatero, after naming candidates of the Socialist Party for the 2008 general elections in November, promised to use his next four years in office to defeat ETA if reelected.
In a gesture indicating a hard-line approach toward ETA, Spain is strengthening cooperation with France, the southwestern part of which is looped into a projected separate Basque country by ETA and is often used by the group as a base to launch attacks against targets in Spain.
At the Franco-Spanish Summit in Paris on Jan. 10, a special police unit tasked with rooting out ETA was formally created. Permanent intelligence units will also be set up to identify suspects linked to terror acts.
The Spanish government scored another point on this front when police arrested two ETA members on Jan. 6, who were identified as those behind the 2006 Madrid airport bombing, during which two people were killed.
The airport bombing forced the government to scrap peace talks and virtually shattered a ceasefire declared by ETA. The group, calling off the 15-month truce in June 2007, has returned to deadly violence since.
Meanwhile, Britain extradited to Spain on Jan. 8 three suspected ETA members on charges of "being on watch for instructions from their superiors to travel to Spain and perpetrate terrorist attacks."
During operations launched by Spanish police in cooperation with their foreign counterparts, hundreds of ETA suspects have been arrested and a large number of weapons, bombs and arms caches discovered.
As another fillip to efforts to improve its governing credentials, the government reported a drastic drop in the number of illegal immigrants reaching southern Spain and the Canary Islands from Africa.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said on Jan. 9 that some 18,000 illegal immigrants reached the two regions from Africa in 2007, down 54 percent from the previous year, thanks to tougher border controls and closer cooperation with concerned countries.
During the last general elections, the Socialists successfully capitalized on national sentiment aroused by the Madrid train bombings. Analysts see no reason why the party will not do likewise this time in order to put up a strong showing again in the voting.
GOVERNMENT PAINTS UPBEAT ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
The economy is another factor weighing heavily on voters' minds as Spain's economic growth is running out of steam following more than a decade of steady expansion.
The growth momentum has shown signs of abating. The annual inflation rate stood at 4.3 percent in December, the highest since1997, and the unemployment rate, hovering at around 8 percent in the third quarter, has continued to rise for the third consecutive month.
The once-hectic property market, a major powerhouse driving Spain's economic growth, has cooled down due to stagnating property prices, and interests rate hikes have sent many Spaniards grappling with real estate mortgages.
The International Monetary Fund also revised down its projection for Spain's economy growth for 2008 to 2.7 percent, the lowest rate since 2002.
Against such a bleak scenario, the government, however, felt no hesitation in striking an upbeat note about the prospects of the economy.
Dismissing official figures pointing to lackluster economic performance and the opposition's warning of an economic slowdown as scare mongering, Zapatero predicted the economy would register a3.0-percent growth in 2008 and the expansion would continue at roughly the same pace in the next several years to come.
Citing the government's performance in the past four years, the prime minister said he was confident about the present and the future economy and pledged his government, if reelected, would strive to create some 1.6 million to 2 million jobs and take one percentage off the current 8-percent unemployment rate.
He has also vowed to cut corporate taxes to attract foreign investment and exempt low-income people from paying taxes.
According to the latest opinion polls, the 47-year-old prime minister was locked in a dead heat with the opposition ln the run-up to the general elections. Zapatero was given a meagre lead of less than 3 percentage points over his rival, Mariano Rajoy, 52,leader of the conservative Popular Party. In some nationwide polls, public opinion was even split half and half as to who would govern Spain better in terms of anti-terrorism and handling the economy.
Zapatero defeated Rajoy in the last elections on March 14, 2004,three days after al Qaeda-inspired Madrid train bombings claimed 191 lives.
Zapatero obtained support from many Spaniards as the then ruling conservatives mistakenly blamed the bombings on ETA, despite evidence pointing to Islamic extremists avenging Madrid's role in Iraq.
Source:Xinhua
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