THE SPANISH Socialist Party (PSOE), which has governed Spain for more than 13 years, has lost yesterday's general election.
President Felipe Gonzalez, who has presided over four governments in that period, conceded defeat last night, and King Juan Carlos will ask Mr Jose Maria Aznar, leader of the right wing Partido Popular (PP), to form a government.
However, the PSOE vote has held up better than expected, and the PP has fallen far short of the absolute majority it had campaigned for. Mr Aznar will have considerable difficulty in finding sufficient support to govern from a minority position.
With 97 per cent of the vote counted, the PSOE had 140 seats, 19 less than it held in the last parliament. The PP had climbed from 141 to 157, 17 more than the PSOE. The high (80 per cent plus) participation has clearly favoured the PSOE, which seems to have finally succeeded in bringing out many disenchanted supporters by playing on fears of the PP's origins in Urancoism.
The result clearly shocked PP candidates and supporters at the party's Calle Genova in Madrid last night. The exit polls had suggested that the PP could win as many as 174 seats. But exit polls in Spain in recent years have been consistently unreliable.
An absolute majority requires 176 votes. From 157 seats, the PP can only reach this figure through tough negotiations with regional groups including the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which has retained its five seats and, more likely, with the Catalan Nationalists (CiU), which has 16 seats.
Both parties have impeccable democratic credentials. Neither will want to be remembered as the group which allowed the "inheritors of Franco", as the PP has been rather unfairly dubbed, to come to power.
If it does form a government, the PP would be the first right wing party to take power democratically from the left since 1934. The PP is historically a centralist party, with an overriding commitment to the "unity of Spain".
It has therefore been hostile to the autonomous powers demanded, and largely won, by the Basques and Catalans since Franco died, though Mr Aznar has been careful to assure voters that he will respect all existing institutions.
The Catalans have been punished less than expected for supporting the last PSOE government, losing only two seats. They have more in common with the PP's liberal economic policies than the social democratic PNV.
Moreover, the Basque moderates could hardly afford to prop up a party loathed by more radical Basques, who support the terrorist and pro independence group Eta.
Eta's political front, Herri Batasuna, has not declined as much as expected, and retains its two seats in the parliament. The PSOE can also take some comfort from a victory in the elections to the autonomous government of Andalucia. Here in their heartland, they have actually increased their seats while the PP declined slightly. The communist led Izquierda Unida has also unexpectedly declined in the Andalucian elections. And it has not made the breakthrough its leader, Mr Julio Anguita, had campaigned for at national level, gaining only three seats on 18 it already held.