Terrorism is voters’ biggest concern since 2004

22 February 2007

MADRID – The ETA bomb attack on Madrid airport which shattered the fragile peace process has hit the government’s popularity with voters, accordidng to a report published on Thursday.

The Centre for Sociologial Investigation (CIS) said in popularity terms, the opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) had closed on the governing socialists, with just 1.2 points separating the two.

Now 37.9 percent of those questioned said they would vote PP if there was an election tomorrow, while the socialists would win with a slender majority of 38.8pc.

The poll comes just three months before municipal elections.

The last study carried out by the CIS found the government led the opposition by 1.4pc.

The United Left would have 6.5pc of the vote in a general election, the Catalan CiU 3.pc, the Catalan nationalists ERC 2pc, and the Basque nationalists 0.8pc

The results of the poll would give the socialists 29.1pc of seats in the parliament and the PP 19.3pc.

In personal terms, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has gone up in popularity, getting a rating of 4.93 compared to 4.76 in the previous poll.

But his opposition counterpart, Mariano Rajoy, has gone down in popularity, from 3.71 to 3.69 points.

There are mixed feelings over terrorism, which is seen as the biggest issue in Spain today.

Just over 25pc thought the government’s policies were good.

But almost exactly the same number disagreed.

Terrorism has become the main worry for the first time since the Madrid train bombings in March 2004.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news