The unexpected defeat of the party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has significant implications for both Europe and the United States. On his first day as prime minister-elect, 43-year-old Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero quickly reiterated his past promises to withdraw Spanish forces from Iraq before June 30, unless the United Nations is given a mandate there. Calling the Iraqi adventure a “disaster” that had led to “nothing but hate and unrest,” he described Spain’s decision to commit peacekeepers to the country as an error. The likely Spanish pullout of its troops represents just one in a growing list of challenges for Washington in an election year. It also ratchets up the political pressure on European leaders like Britain’s Tony Blair and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, both of whom also threw in their lot with the Bush administration despite their own public’s opposition to the war. Zapatero has already suggested that he will move Spain’s policies closer to the rest of Europe, particularly countries like France and Germany, in pushing for collective solutions to terror and security issues.
Spanish anger at Aznar’s government–which polled ahead of the Socialists before last week’s attack–seems to have been inflamed by divisions over who is behind the blasts. On the morning of March 11, interior minister Angel Acebes immediately declared his “100 percent” certainty that the radical Basque separatist group ETA was behind the bombings. If that were indeed the case, the ruling party clearly hoped voters would continue to support their tough policies against the group. But by the time 11 million Spaniards took to the streets in solidarity marches the day after the blasts, many were questioning whether the attacks instead had been carried out by Muslim militants angered at Spain’s support for Washington in Iraq. Amid the tens of thousands of simple “Peace” signs, conservatives bore signs saying “ETA, no,” and their political opponents carried the message: “Mr. Aznar, Al Qaeda has made us pay for your war.”
Suspicions about Al Qaeda gained ground the night before the elections, when police arrested five people–including three Moroccan men with alleged links to a radical Islamic group–in connection with the attacks. One of the Moroccans was reportedly on a Spanish government watch-list since before the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. The night of the arrests, nearly 10,000 government opponents responded to a last minute phone text and e-mail campaign to take part in a “spontaneous” and angry demonstration in front of Aznar’s Popular Party headquarters in Madrid on what is officially an electioneering-free day. The protestors accused the PP of a cover-up, chanting “ETA no, but no lies either”. Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy spoke to the media to tell demonstrators to go home because they were breaking the law. They stayed for hours.
Hours later the Interior Minister announced the discovery of a videotape that claimed responsibility for the attacks on behalf of Al Qaeda. A transcript of the Arabic-language tape was released by the ministry even though the video has yet to be authenticated. The self-described “spokesman for Al Qaeda in Europe” said, in what the government called Moroccan-accented Arabic, that the attacks were “a response to your collaboration with the criminals, Bush and his allies.” The transcript continues: “This is a response to the crimes that you caused in the world and more concretely, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be more, God willing.” It was the last political message most Spaniards heard before they voted.
Election day eventually dawned clear and blue–a stark contrast to the gray drizzle that had blanketed the city in the days after the attacks. As millions in Madrid went off to cast their ballots, tens of thousands of mourners visited hallowed ground at the different attack sites. Much of the city’s main station, Atocha, had already become an impromptu memorial made up of hundreds of candles, flowers, and personal messages for the dead. There, as well as at the two other stations where bombs exploded, mourners searched for traces of the atrocity missed by the cleaning and repair crews. At Atocha, they found glass shards in remote corners, traces of blood from someone who fled up the down escalator and an art deco clock with a cracked facade.
Flags remained at half-staff and masked welders were still cutting punctured and twisted train cars into portable chunks. Human remains were being laid into the earth, disheartened family members continued to search for the missing, and others walked out of meetings with authorities carrying bags full of books, cell phones, clothing from their relatives.
It was against this backdrop that Spain chose a leader and a new direction for the next four years, dumping a government credited with a thriving economy in tough times across Europe, and still popular after eight years in power, even after the war in Iraq. Jesus Nunez, director of the Institute of Studies on Conflicts and Humanitarian Action, said that the Spanish “failure” in foreign policy in Iraq was a political issue that had gone “dormant,” but awoken with a vengeance by the attacks. “It’s obvious that they would never have won if the attacks had not happened,” Nunez says. The Socialists won by 5 percent, due in large part to a 9 percent increase in turnout spurred in large part by young people craving change after the disillusionment of recent days.
Analysts say that Aznar’s party lost the race because Spaniards saw their rush to judgment against the ETA as a politically convenient deception. “In trying to get an electoral victory, they emphasized the ETA-theory to such an extent that the manipulation was too obvious,” says Nunez. “And, in the end, the population reacted to being manipulated.” A policeman at the end of the island on Line 2 at Atocha station said it in other words, whispering with repressed anger, “All the politicians can go to hell.”
Meanwhile, between the tracks at Atocha, before the smallest of the dozens of makeshift memorials, a lonely candle and a hand-written message lay near the end of the passenger island. There, on election night, a woman crossed herself as she read the simple message read: “Javi, your friends will never forget you.” Neither will the rest of Spain.
