Terror Attack #1 Issue On Minds Of Spanish Voters

by Tito Drago

(IPS) MADRID -- The terror attacks that left nearly 200 dead and at least 1,200 injured in Madrid Thursday will have a crucial influence on Sunday's general elections in Spain, say sources along the political spectrum.

Although there is a virtual consensus in Spain that the Basque separatist group ETA was behind the 10 explosions in commuter trains in the capital early Thursday, evidence has emerged that the al-Qaeda terrorist network reportedly claimed responsibility.

According to one analyst, if it is confirmed that the attacks were staged by ETA, the governing Popular Party (PP) will benefit Sunday, but if it becomes clear that Islamic extremists were responsible, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) will be favored.

The latest opinion polls carried out prior to the rail blasts indicated that the PP would win on Sunday. But the polls also predicted that it would do so with a narrow margin, leaving open the possibility that the conservative ruling party might fail to win an absolute majority in parliament.

That question is all-important, since it is parliament that selects the prime minister. If the PP does not win at least 176 of the 350 seats in Congress, it will be forced to strike a deal with small nationalist parties to ensure that its candidate, Mariano Rajoy, is appointed head of government.

The PP's successes in cracking down on ETA should give it a boost in the elections, since polls show terrorism is one of the most pressing public concerns in Spain.

Meanwhile, the PSOE, the main opposition force, has been hurt by recent developments. In Catalonia, the PSOE formed part of the provincial government in late December in coalition with Esquerra Republicana (ERC, Republican Left in Catalonian), a left-leaning pro-independence party.

As a result of that alliance, Joseph Lluis Carod Rovira was designated as head of the Catalonian government. But in early January, he met with ETA chiefs in France without informing either the central government or his partners in the provincial administration.

Carod Rovira was forced to resign, although he still heads the ERC, which remains part of the provincial governing coalition. The incident triggered internal conflicts in the PSOE, but the party's national leaders continue supporting the Socialist Party in Catalonia, which is allied with the ERC.

The fact that the PSOE has stayed in the coalition with the pro-independence ERC could hurt it on Sunday.

The Spanish government of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Spain's political parties, central trade unions and non-governmental organizations share the hypothesis that ETA was responsible for the rail blasts.

However, the government says it has not ruled out the possibility that an Islamic terrorist group may be responsible, and Interior Minister Angel Acebes said he had ordered an investigation in that sense.

Acebes told a press conference that in the town of Alcal‡ de Henares, the starting point of several of the trains carrying explosives, a van that had been stolen a few days ago was found with detonators and an audiotape of verses from the Koran.

After the minister made his statements, a London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, reported that it had received an e-mail in the name of al-Qaeda claiming responsibility for the explosions.

Arnaldo Otegi, a spokesman for Batasuna, the outlawed political arm of ETA, was the only public figure in Spain to state categorically that the attacks were not committed by the Basque separatist organization, but by "the Arab resistance" in retaliation for the Aznar administration's support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Patxi Zabaleta, the head of Aralar -- a political group that recently broke off from Batasuna -- told IPS that he was not sure ETA was responsible for the blasts.

But, he added, "if it was, this would indicate a drastic change in its modus operandi, and would mark the end of its history." However, he said that due to the sheer magnitude of the mass killing carried out in Madrid, he had a hard time believing that ETA was responsible.

Asked about the influence the attacks would have on Sunday's elections, Zabaleta said that if it is confirmed that the attacks were staged by ETA, the PP will benefit at the polls, but if the explosions were carried out by an Arab group, the PSOE would undoubtedly be favored.

Analyst Eulogio Lopez agreed with Zabaleta.

But spokepersons for the Basque Country parliament condemned the explosions as "a criminal attack that confirms the moral bankruptcy of ETA and of everyone who supports such sinister activities," underlining that "all citizens" are the targets of terrorists.

The communique was unanimously approved in a session in which the Batasuna parliamentarians did not take part.

Ombudsman Enrique Mugica, of the PSOE, told IPS that he had no doubt that the blasts were the work of ETA, pointing out that the group had already attempted to plant explosives in Atocha, the central Madrid station where one of the blasts occurred Thursday.

But the official added that "the beast has entered the final stretch of its existence."

The head of Europol (the European Union police) Jurgen Storbeck noted Thursday that a Europol report approved on Dec. 22 by the EU Council of Ministers warned that ETA had changed its operating methods.

The report warned that "Madrid could become the central scenario of (ETA's) terrorist activity."

"Planned action could involve the placing of various explosives and car-bombs at different strategic points in the capital (the subway, freeways, important avenues, shopping centers, etc) to explode one after the other within the space of just a few hours," said the report.

Spanish government spokesman Eduardo Zaplana said the procedure used in Thursday's blasts was similar to the one employed by ETA on Christmas Eve last year, when the police deactivated more than 50 kgs of explosives in the Chamartin train station in Madrid.