Spaniards mourned the death of a small-town Socialist politician in a shooting blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA, transforming what was supposed to be a quiet day of reflection before today's general election into a day of grief.
The big question on everyone's mind was what effect, if any, Friday's killing of Isaias Carrasco would have at polling stations: a groundswell of sympathy benefiting Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, or a backlash against him for having negotiated in vain with ETA while conservatives wanted to crush the militant group with police measures.
Until Friday's shooting in broad daylight in the Basque industrial town of Mondragon, Zapatero's party had a 4-percentage-point lead over the conservative Popular Party in three polls released last weekend and Monday -- the last day such surveys could be published. The campaign had been dominated by a cooling economy and concerns over illegal immigration.
PHOTO: AFP
Carrasco was shot three times as he prepared to go to his job as a clerk in a highway toll booth. Yesterday, colleagues decorated it with a bouquet of flowers, candles and a black sash.
A wake for the 42-year-old father of three, was being held yesterday at the town hall in Mondragon, and the funeral was taking place in the evening. Mondragon is heavily pro-Basque independence and is run by a party that judges say is linked to ETA's outlawed political wing, Batasuna. The mayor, Inocencia Galparsoro, voted against a resolution condemning the killing of Carrasco.
The shooting prompted political parties to call off the remainder of their rallies leading up to Friday midnight, when the campaign was to come to an official end. In Spain rallies are banned the day before an election.
Although the scale of bloodshed is much less this time, many Spaniards cannot help but think how the killing is reminiscent of their last election. In March 2004, Islamic militants detonated 10 bombs on packed commuter trains in Madrid, three days before the general election, killing 191 people and leaving more than 1,800 wounded.
Pro-US conservatives in power at the time blamed ETA even as evidence mounted that Islamic militants were to blame. Spaniards saw this as a desperate bid to deflect perceptions that the government's support for Iraq made this country a target for al-Qaeda, and the conservatives lost the election.
The two main parties joined all other parties in Parliament in issuing a statement on Friday night condemning the latest attack and vowing to defeat ETA.
But Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party complained that the other parties rejected its request to add a clause condemning the idea of negotiating with ETA -- clearly a dig at Zapatero.
ETA declared what it called a permanent cease-fire in March 2006 and said it wanted a negotiated settlement to a conflict in which it has killed more than 800 people.
But the group grew frustrated with a lack of concessions in ensuing peace talks and formally called off the truce last June.
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