Right to get absolute majority, poll predicts

4 March 2004
MADRID – The ruling conservative Popular Party will return to power with 42.2 percent of the vote, a study published Thursday predicted.

The PP will have 176 deputies and an absolute majority, according to the ‘macrostudy’ carried out by the Centre for Sociological Investgations.(CSI)

If  voters follow the predictions of the study, the PP will have  6.7 percent more of the votes than the main socialist opposition PSOE party.

The PSOE should get 35.5 percent of the vote with 131 deputies in the Spanish parliament.

This is just the latest poll to predict a victory for the PP at the 14 March general election.

Pollsters carried out interviews with 24,410 voters across Spain between 24 January and 15 February.

The poll was carried out during the scandal over the secret meeting between the terrorist group ETA  and left-wing Catalan nationalist leader of the ERC party, Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira.

Carod, the former deputy leader of the Catalonia regional parliament, was forced to resign after details of the interview were published in a newspaper.  

ETA later declared a truce in Catalonia but promised to continue attacks in other parts of Spain.

The affair damaged the standing of the Left in Spain in the run-up to the general election.

Among the smaller parties, the poll predicted ERC would get the biggest increase in the vote, with their deputies increasing from one to six.

The left-wing IU would get an increased share in the parliament, with ten deputies and 6.6 percent of the popular vote, the poll claimed.

The right-wing Catalan nationalist CiU party would lose ground with the number of deputies falling from 15 to 12.

Other smaller nationalist parties would stay with the same number of deputies.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

                                       Subject: Spanish news