Spain's ruling Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) won Sunday's elections, according to exit polls, meaning that Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will remain as prime minister for four more years until 2012.
Official results to be published starting at 10:30 local time (2130 GMT) seem likely to confirm the PSOE victory.
Zapatero was born in 1960 in northern Spain city Valladolid, but his family soon moved to Leon where he went to school and earned a law degree at the local university. He then taught constitutional law there from 1982 to 1986.
He joined the PSOE in 1979 and earned his first legislative seat in the 1986 elections. His legislative duties include being spokesman for the lower house Constitution Commission; and PSOE spokesman in the Justice and Interior and Public Administration Commissions.
He was named PSOE Secretary General in 2000 -- defeating high-profile candidates like Jose Bono and Rosa Diez -- and became the most visible opponent of the People's Party government, led by Jose Maria Aznar. He led the PSOE to victory, against all the odds, at the 2004 general elections.
His government has been characterized by new faces seeking to regain the confidence of the electorate, shaken by corruption scandals during the presidency of the PSOE's Felipe Gonzalez.
He began his rule aiming to negotiate with illegal armed Basque separatist group ETA, which failed when the rebels resumed their bombing campaign. Opposition figures slammed the negotiations as pusillanimous and Zapatero as a demagogue.
His is married to soprano Sonsoles Espinosa and has two daughters, Laura and Alba.
Source:Xinhua
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