Spanish Voters Oust Ruling Party

MADRID —  Blaming last week’s railway bombings on their government’s support for the U.S. war in Iraq, Spanish voters ousted the ruling party Sunday in an angry, dramatic upset.

Barely two hours after the polls closed, the opposition Socialist Party claimed victory as Spaniards waving flags poured into Madrid’s streets. The Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar conceded defeat, another victim, perhaps, of Spain’s deadliest terrorist attack -- one increasingly attributed to Islamic extremists.

The Socialist victory ends eight years of conservative rule and deprives Washington of one of its closest allies, complicating the Bush administration’s international political and military agenda. Socialist leaders have said they will bring Spanish troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were among the earliest members of U.S.-led alliances.

“Today the Spanish people have spoken with massive participation. They have said they want a government of change,” Socialist Party leader and soon-to-be Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a crowded room of supporters.

He opened his victory address with a minute of silence for the dead.

Reeling from Thursday’s railway bombings, which killed 200 people and wounded 1,500, Spanish voters turned out in high numbers Sunday. Emotions were raw. People wept openly at polling stations, many of which were draped with black ribbons of mourning.

Numerous voters said they believed Spain’s support for the Bush administration had put it in the cross hairs of Islamic terrorists.

Aznar’s government initially downplayed the possibility that the bombings were the work of Islamic militants and instead blamed Basque separatists.

In the middle of Saturday night, however, just hours before the polls opened, the government announced it had been given a tape on which a purported spokesman for the Al Qaeda terrorist network claimed responsibility for the attacks. The speaker said Spain was being punished for helping “the criminal Bush.”

“It may well be” that Al Qaeda determined the election, analyst Charles Powell of Madrid’s San Pablo University said. “Voters are obviously making the connection to Thursday’s attack. They are saying it was Aznar’s fault, that we wouldn’t have been a target if it weren’t for him.”

The overwhelming majority of Spaniards opposed the war in Iraq, but Aznar ignored that sentiment and gave his full support to President Bush. Spain has 1,300 troops in Iraq.

Still, the opposition had not translated into political change until now.

Aznar has governed for the last eight years and was not running for reelection, having designated as his successor Mariano Rajoy. Aznar oversaw a period of steady economic growth, reducing inflation, creating jobs and balancing the budget. He held firm against the Basque separatist group ETA and is credited with whipping his once-divided party into shape and raising Spain’s profile in the world.

But opponents said Aznar’s devotion to Bush alienated Spain from its traditional European allies.

The government also came under criticism for its handling of the investigation into Thursday’s massacre. Some Spaniards accused it of manipulating information on the suspects for political gain, a charge Aznar vehemently denied.

Demonstrations in the two days since the attacks helped galvanize the public and send more voters than expected to the polls in a show of defiance and perseverance. Turnout was significantly higher than in the last general election, in 2000.

“Filling the ballot boxes is the best way of confronting those who seek to impose death on this society’s desire for life,” the pro-left El Pais newspaper said in an editorial Sunday.

With 99% of the ballots counted, the Socialists had 42.6% of the vote, for 164 seats in parliament, compared with 37.7% and 148 seats for the Popular Party.

Key to the Socialist victory were 2 million first-time voters, who were likely to be especially angry about the Iraq war, analyst Powell said.

Of the dozens of people interviewed by The Times, no one said the bombings made them change the way they voted. Instead, the decisive factor seems to have been turnout. People voted who might not have gone to the polls otherwise, benefiting the left.

With bandages on his face and a neck brace, bombing victim Cayetano Abad arrived at his polling station by ambulance and wheelchair. “I’ve come to show that everything carries on, that we cannot stand idle,” he said.

The Socialists, however, must make alliances with other parties to govern. That might temper drastic policy shifts and will leave the government in a fragile position at a time when it must minister to a battered public.

Perhaps seeking to allay concerns about whether he can be as tough as Aznar on terrorism, Rodriguez Zapatero pledged to “unite all political forces” in the battle. “My immediate priority will be to fight all forms of terrorism,” he told supporters.

Analysts noted that the bombings alone did not determine the outcome of the election. In the days before the attacks brought an end to campaigning, the Socialists had been narrowing the gap that separated them from the Popular Party.

Economic issues were also at work. Although Aznar reduced unemployment, Spain’s rate is among the highest in Europe. Young Spaniards are hit hard by a housing crunch, which ranked high among issues in polls.

Some analysts suggested voters acted more out of emotion than political thinking, and they said the election should have been postponed to give the public time to recover. “Could you imagine the United States holding an election on 9/14?” asked political analyst Eduardo Nolla, speaking on CNN.

The Socialist Party left power eight years ago, plagued by corruption scandals, and had not been given much chance of making a comeback in the foreseeable future. Rodriguez Zapatero was seen as a lackluster leader who had taken his party to defeat time and again.

Democracy in Spain is relatively young: It began 25 years ago after the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.

Despite the large turnout, some Spaniards said that they were voting out of tradition but that their hearts weren’t in it. The grief was still too deep.

“I don’t care who wins. I have no illusions of anything,” said Mari Carmen Sanchez, an office clerk, voting at a school that counted five dead among its students’ parents. “How can we be voting when the bodies are fresh in the ground?”

The pall cast on the election was long and dark. One polling station, at the South Madrid public school, looked out at El Pozo railway terminal, where the hulk of a bombed train sat.

Voters cast their ballots, then stepped across the street to pay homage to the dead and look at the ruins of two passenger cars.

“I don’t know if the Socialists will be better or worse when it comes to terrorism, but at least they won’t support war,” said Patricia Valiente, 37, a secretary who was voting at the school. “This,” she said, signaling to the wreckage across the street, “wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been supporting war.”

Among Popular Party backers, many said the government had improved the economy and was better equipped to maintain stability. They said they didn’t trust the left to govern.

“The [Socialists] were thieves and corrupt,” said Jose del Hoya, 65, a retired housepainter. “Today, with the Popular Party, we have more work.”

Aznar and his wife were booed and jostled as they voted. Some supporters cheered, but when the outgoing prime minister tried to address those gathered, he was drowned out by chants of “Liars!” and “Peace!”

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Times researcher Cristina Mateo-Yanguas contributed to this report.