Will the Spanish Elections on Sunday Result in Another Ungovernable Nation in Europe?

May 25 (LPAC)--Authorities for about 8,000 municipalities and 13 of Spain's autonomous regions will be chosen May 27 in an election that is seen within Spain as the preamble to next year's general elections. President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was elected in part due to his opposition to the Iraq war and who played a positive role in the development of a Presidents' Club in Ibero America committed to economic development policies, had been campaigning for his PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party) candidates and those of the government coalition parties. On the opposite side, Mariano Rajoy, head of the right-wing Popular Party, joined by former President Jose Maria Aznar, who was voted out of office after being Bush's closest supporter after Tony Blair, have been campaigning against Rodriguez Zapatero, with a smear campaign similar to that run against Lopez Obrador in Mexico and against Rafael Correa in Ecuador. The Popular Party was the party formed by the followers of Franco after Franco's death in the mid-1970s.

Even though these are local elections, the issues have been the war on terror and the Spanish participation in the war in Iraq. The results may add another nation west of Russia to the list of ungovernable nations.

Rodriguez Zapatero was elected three years ago but his party did not get a majority, so they made a coalition government allied with IU (United Left) and several Catalonian and Basque parties.