Spain faces shift in power in Basque region

By DANIEL WOOLLS
The Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Spain's Socialists on Monday savored the prospect of governing the troubled Basque region for the first time, after scoring big electoral gains at the expense of nationalists who have held power there for nearly 30 years.

No party won a majority in Sunday's voting for the 75-seat legislature in the prosperous northern region that borders France and has been wracked by decades of separatist violence. And it will probably take weeks of negotiations before a new Basque government is formed.

But there is no doubt of a major power shift in Spain's most turbulent region.

For the first time since the Basque country won broad autonomy in 1980, lawmakers who support keeping it firmly within Spain now narrowly outnumber those who back outright independence or depict it as a country within a country, with a distinct language and culture, rather than just another part of Spain.

In the last legislature, President Juan Jose Ibarretxe's ruling Basque Nationalist Party led a minority coalition that totaled 32 seats but survived due to periodic support from other parties, including one that refuses to condemn the armed separatist group ETA. Altogether, they surpassed non-nationalist parties.

On Sunday, the ruling party again won the most seats and even gained an additional one — for a total of 30. But no openly pro-ETA party was allowed to run Sunday, so the ruling party lost that cushion.

The Basque branch of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists made big gains, going from 18 to at least 24 seats. If the Socialist party reaches a deal with other non-nationalist parties — mainly the conservative Popular Party — it will command the 38 seats needed to rule.

Basque Socialist leader Patxi Lopez claimed the right to try to form a government and be the next Basque president.

"I have a mandate to bring about change," Lopez told cheering supporters.

Jose Blanco, the number two official in the Socialist party, said Monday the party would prefer to govern in a minority, relying on support from other non-nationalists but without giving them ministerial posts in the regional government.

But it is not a given that Lopez will try to strike a deal with Spain's conservatives, since the parties are archenemies at the national level. The Socialists could also team up with the Basque Nationalist Party — but it is not clear which party would get to name the regional Basque president.

"I think the (two parties) will reach a political agreement, even if it means the Basque Nationalist Party has to sacrifice the current president," said Ana Murillo, a 35-year-old office worker in Bilbao, the region's largest city.

In another election Sunday, Zapatero's Socialists lost their slim hold on power in the northwest Galicia region, a traditional Popular Party stronghold. The Socialist leader there, Emilio Perez Tourino, resigned Monday to take blame for the defeat.