10 March 2008

MADRID - The Socialist Party secretary, José Blanco, last night claimed victory in Sunday's general election, a result that would give Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a second term in office.

Shortly after polling stations closed at 8pm, all the exit polls for the general election pointed to a Socialist victory, with the gap between the incumbent party and the PP ranging between 11 and 26 congressional seats. Three of the four polls had the PSOE near an absolute majority of 176 seats, up from its current 164, predicting a more convincing win than had been expected.

At press time, with 56 percent of votes counted, PSOE was set to win 171 seats, with the PP on 150 - just three more than it won when losing power in 2004. The United Left (IU) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) looked set to be the big losers, with half as many seats as last term.

A new party with an anti-regional nationalist programme led by former Socialist Rosa Díez, Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPyD), appeared set to obtain a seat in Congress, while the Basque nationalists of PNV and the Catalan nationalists of CiU looked like they would keep their seven and 10 seats, respectively.

Turnout figures at the polls were high throughout the day, generally lagging slightly behind the extremely high figures of 2004, an election which took place three days after the 11 March terrorist bomb attacks in which 191 people died. All parties urged voters to again turn out in force as a response to the murder of a former politician in the Basque Country by ETA on Friday.

The final turnout figure was expected to be around 74 percent, four percent down on four years ago.

Historically, a higher turnout favours the Socialist Party, which had urged voters to turn out en masse throughout the campaign. Over 35 million Spaniards were eligible to vote yesterday, including 1.2 million living abroad.

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