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Zapatero wins Spanish election

• Mark Mardell
• 9 Mar 08, 10:56 PM

Partial results suggest that Zapatero has increased his number of MPs from 164 to 169.

If the projections are right, it is a bit of a surprise, as most polls were predicting he would win but lose seats. It's even more curious because the turn-out was down on last time around and a high turn-out was thought to favour the socialists.

The socialists' first reaction was that the winner was democracy and their first thoughts were for the family of the man murdered on Friday.

dominated the end of the Spanish election campaign, although perhaps did not change its mood.

That effect was highlighted because no electioneering was allowed by law from midnight on Friday to when the polls closed, so the only political news in the papers or on TV was the reaction to the murder.

The natural reaction was that the people might turn more towards the conservative PP because throughout the campaign, indeed throughout the last four years, they have criticised the government for being soft on Eta terrorism.

But it may simply have encouraged people to vote, to show their faith in democracy.

Brave daughter

In particular, the empassioned and rather brave statement of the dead man's daughter called on people to vote in his memory and reminded people he was a socialist.

And when the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy went to pay his last respects he was told off by the Basque socialist leader for having said in the past that they had betrayed the victims of terrorism and was asked not to repeat this.

So, despite the politicans' initial instincts to show unity, the positions they have taken up are as sharp as anything else in this rather bitter campaign.

Many commentators said that the murder wouldn’t affect the result - and perhaps they were right -but it certainly made for a very sombre backdrop.

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