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Close vote in Spain elections
MADRID, Spain -- Results from Spain's city and regional elections were close enough that both sides could claim victory. With 99 percent of ballots counted, the opposition Socialists were ahead slightly with 34.7 percent to 33.9 percent for Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party. It was the first time since 1991 that the Socialists won more votes than the Popular Party in local elections. But it was only a slight gain for the opposition over 1999 results, and only a slight decline for Aznar's party, which held on to the mayor's seat in Madrid as well as control of Valencia and smaller cities and towns in central Spain. The elections had been seen as a referendum on Aznar and his conservative government, which angered Spaniards by supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The Socialists had hoped voters would punish Aznar for his war stance, as well as his handling of a major oil spill off the Spanish coast last year. "You've scored sensational results," Aznar said at party headquarters after midnight. "A few days ago some thought they were going to wipe us off the map. Today the Popular Party is still the great party it has always been." Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the results were "a good start looking forward to (general elections in) 2004." More than 8,100 city council posts were up for grabs across Spain, as were the legislatures in 13 of the country's 17 regions. More than 34 million of Spain's 40 million people were eligible to vote, and turnout was 68 percent, up from 64 percent in 1999. Aznar's wife, Ana Botella, made her political debut, winning a seat on the Madrid city council. Many Spaniards saw her campaign as their version of former first lady Hillary Clinton's successful 2000 bid for the U.S. Senate. Aznar, 50, was not on Sunday's ballot. He had announced long before the war that he would not run for a third term in the 2004 general elections. Ahead of the war, opinion polls showed that as many as 90 percent of Spaniards opposed Aznar's pro-war stance. The other election focal point was the unprecedented ban on the leftist, pro-independence Batasuna party, linked to the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA that is blamed for more than 800 killings since 1968. The ban meant that dozens of mayors and hundreds of town councilors from Batasuna were barred from re-election in Basque towns. Batasuna, which won 20 percent of the municipal vote in 1999, tried to rename itself AuB. But the courts struck the party's candidates off the ballots. The party then distributed phony ballots so supporters could cast a symbolic vote that would be nullified. Ten percent of the votes in the Basque region were nullified, compared with 1.3 percent nationwide. The moderate Basque Nationalist Party, which governs in the regional parliament, appeared to benefit from Batasuna's disappearance from the ballot. -- CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman contributed to this report. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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