SPAIN: Early results from yesterday's municipal and regional elections in Spain showed the opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) making gains. With 80 per cent of votes counted, the PSOE had inched ahead of the centre-right Partido Popular (PP) in terms of the total number of votes cast, reversing the trend of the last eight years.
However, it does not look as if an intense, bitter and personalised campaign has given the PSOE the breakthrough it needed to be confident of displacing the PP in the forthcoming general elections, due in less than a year. In particular, the PSOE was trailing the PP for control of Madrid City Council, the glittering prize both parties recognise as symbolic of the national mood.
These elections have been treated by both major parties as "primaries" for the general elections. Both the prime minister, Mr José María Aznar, and the new PSOE leader, Mr José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, focused on national rather than local issues.
Mr Zapatero tried to capitalise on the massive popular opposition to the Mr Aznar's support for the Iraq war, and to his government's handling of the oil spillage in Galicia last year.
Given the unprecedented scale of street demonstrations on both issues, the PSOE's performance has to be regarded as disappointing. It may not be enough to copperfasten the inexperienced Mr Zapatero's grip on a rather divided party, battered by a series of electoral defeats.
Mr Aznar, fighting what he insists is his last campaign as party leader, clawed back support against the tide of initially hostile public opinion in a highly professional, if somewhat demagogic campaign. He repeatedly warned voters that a PSOE victory in these elections would not only presage the reversal of Spain's greatly improved economic performance and low unemployment, but could undermine the unity of the state itself. He accused Mr Zapatero of fronting a "radical socialist-communist coalition", and these tactics seem to have worked.
Mr Aznar's performance is probably sufficient to enable him to exercise a decisive role in deciding his successor, who will be expected to continue to implement policies which, in many respects, have shifted to the right since the PP won a decisive absolute majority in 2000.
However, the most radical aspect of Mr Aznar's prime ministership - a frontal attack on Spain´s minority nationalisms, and on Basque nationalism in particular - remained open to question on the basis of results from the region coming in last night.
These were the first elections in 25 years in which the radical nationalists of Batasuna, now officially regarded by the Spanish parliament and courts as the political wing of the terrorists of ETA, were not allowed to participate. Former members of the party, which was banned last year, called on their supporters to cast spoiled votes, if possible using illegal voting papers with lists of Batasuna candidates.
Batasuna has consistently won majorities in a number of Basque towns and villages, and usually takes between 12 and 15 per cent of the votes in the region overall. Last Friday, a judge arrested several leaders of the movement, including Loren Arkotxa, the outgoing mayor of a town governed by Batasuna for the last eight years.
The election passed off peacefully in the town yesterday, as it did throughout the Basque provinces, where a representative of Sinn Féin accompanied the former party leader, Arnaldo Otegi, to vote. But I saw Batasuna's illegal voting sheets inside the polling area in one centre, and this pattern was clearly repeated elsewhere. Last night's incomplete results showed that tens of thousands of people had cast spoiled votes in the region. It remains to be seen how towns where a majority of the votes are spoiled can be governed by parties which represent a minority of the population.
The more moderate nationalists of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) were targeted by Mr Aznar almost as fiercely as Batasuna during the campaign. However, their vote showed significant increases in some areas, while the PP was failing to make any major gains. The political context in the Basque Country has changed, but it is clear the population is as deeply divided as ever.