"OUR victory is the beginning of a new cycle in the history of Spain," Jose Aznar, leader of the right wing Partido Popular (PP), declared at his first post election press conference yesterday.
Given the narrowness of that victory in Sunday's elections, and the fact that Mr Aznar will need the support of a party or parties with very different policies if he is to govern Spain, that declaration may jibe distinctly premature.
As if to underline that point, the Spanish stock market dropped 19 points, reflecting business disappointment that Mr Aznar had failed to win a clear majority.
The idea of a "new cycle" has been one of his main themes. It is closely linked to the concept of the "alternation of power" - parties with differing ideologies democratically replacing each other in government with something approaching regularity.
A brief summary of the past 60 years will give some idea as to why this is considered so important here and why even opponents of Mr Aznar and the PP wanted them to win this time around.
The last time the Spanish right took power from the left at the ballot box was 1934. The bienio negro, two "black years" of often bloody social conflict followed, including a full scale workers' revolution in Asturias. The left wing Popular Front ousted the right at the polls in 1936. Gen Franco's insurrection that summer took back by force what the right had lost democratically.
The cost in human life and in civil liberties was enormous. Forty years of dictatorship followed. Economic stagnation and aggressively fascist ideology was followed by rapid economic growth and painfully slow political liberalisation. In most of Spain the left gradually re emerged as the dominant opposition force, led by a disciplined Communist Party (PCE) with an innovative policy of "national reconciliation".
In the Basque country, however, the most potent opposition was provided by ETA, a group committed to full Basque independence and prepared to use a dramatic campaign of violence to achieve it. Its persistence as a terrorist organisation, with significant political support, is the most poisoned legacy of Francoism. By the 1970s the once moribund Socialist Party (PSOE) had radically reorganised under the dynamic leadership of Felipe Gonzalez. With Franco's death in 1975, and the emergence of democratic reforms from within the old regime, Mr Gonzalez overtook the PCE to become the undisputed opposition leader.
The first two democratic elections under a constitutional monarchy were won by the Union del Centro Democratico (UCD), a grouping of former Francoists and Christian Democrats led by Adolfo Suarez. Mr Suarez's party was already coming apart from internal tensions when a clique of Francoists attempted a military coup in 1981. Partly in response, the Spanish electorate ditched the UCD the following year, giving Mr Gonzalez a massive overall majority.
MR Gonzalez's policies owed more to German social democracy than to the Marxist tradition of his own party. He and his young cabinet (most of them in their early 40s) set about modernising the Spanish economy, building a welfare state, liberalising laws on the family and sexuality, and becoming respected on the European and world stages.
Thirteen years later, the Socialists leave behind a dynamic business climate, greatly improved social and health services, a thriving cultural sector and enhanced international prestige. On the negative side, there is 23 per cent unemployment, an outrageous series of financial and security scandals and an undiminished ETA terrorist threat.
The PSOE government has looked tired, flaccid and incapable of curbing the corruption of some of its senior members. But despite the advantage of opposing a crippled and discredited administration, Mr Aznar and the PP have won fewer seats (156) in this parliament than the PSOE governed with in the last one (159). And the PSOE remains a very potent opposition force, slipping by only just over 1 per cent and actually winning more votes overall than in the last election to take 141 seats. (Participation was higher, on a bigger census, this time around).
The disappointment in the PP (and the stock market) is all the more bitter for the very high expectations of a clear PP majority in the opinion polls. This is not a good scenario in which to start a new cycle. Mr Aznar needs 176 votes to be elected President when the new Congress meets early next April. He can count with any confidence on only five in addition to his own deputies, from regional parties in the Canaries and Valencia, leaving him shy 14 supporters. This might not be so difficult if the PP were not so isolated from most other parties.
Despite Mr Aznar's undoubted success in just seven years' leadership in moving the party towards the political centre from the hard right, the stale odour of Francoism still sticks to the PP in the minds of many Spanish voters. And Mr Aznar and his colleagues have been scathing in their attacks on the small Catalan and Basque parties with whom, they now have to negotiate for support.
WHILE Mr Aznar says he will respect their autonomous governments and institutions, the PP's rhetoric appeals shamelessly to a sense of Spanish chauvinism which enrages Basques and Catalans. Both these parties have more or less maintained their strengths in the new parliament.
This is a particularly remarkable achievement for Mr Jordi Pujol's Catalan nationalists. They were expected to suffer for supporting the PSOE over the last three years but only slipped one seat to 16, stopping the rise of the PP in Catalonia. And they are almost certainly the force which will make or break Mr Aznar as President.
As if that were not enough, Mr Aznar has been contemptuous of the deals Felipe Gonzalez did with the Catalans in order to stay in power.
"He is on the record as saying that he would not be interested in governing under conditions imposed by any other party, a commitment he was rapidly moving away from at yesterday's press conference.
The word he used most often was "stability", closely followed by "responsibility", and he roundly dismissed the idea that new elections would have to be called sooner rather than later to clarify the situation. He appealed to the statesmanship of all parties to ensure that Spain could seize this opportunity for effective renewal. But he must know that he faces an immensely difficult task.
Meanwhile, the PSOE has a chance to confidently clean up its act in opposition, without the humiliation of a landslide defeat. Furthermore, it can take comfort from the signal failure of the communist led Izquierda Unida (IU) to take any significant number of votes on its left. The IU leader, Julio Anguita, had confidently predicted big inroads into the Socialist vote but only crept up from 18 to 21 seats. His leadership must now be in question - and the hand of those within IU who seek an alliance with the PSOE will be greatly strengthened.
The prospect of a left opposition with five more seats than his own party must be the stuff of Jose Maria Aznar's nightmares. Under these circumstances, no one should rule out a come back, in the medium or even the short term, by the charismatic Mr Gonzalez.
