National election campaigns begin tonight

Candidates Rajoy (l.) and Rubalcaba

SPAIN The official election campaign gets under way at midnight tonight, although in fact it has been going on for months. The truth is that the PP has them won for some time. The PSOE Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero leaves a record 5 million unemployed and the economy in chaos and polls show that Mariano Rajoy, 56, the PP candidate for President of the Government (the official title for what is otherwise a Prime Minister), leads by anything between 12 and 16 points, depending on who pays the pollster. Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, 60, the PSOE candidate, has little chance of success, even with the announcement that the Basque terrorists of ETA have declared a ceasefire, a negotiation instigated by him when he was Minister of the Interior.>>>

National elections called for November 20

(Photo: Europa Sur)

SPAIN (Agencies) Premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced yesterday that he was calling early national elections on November 20th, so that the next Government can take charge of the 2012 financial year and therefore "project political and financial stability over the next few months." Zapatero made the announcement at a press conference after the Ministers Council held every Friday. He pointed out that this would leave enough time to approve and set into place the laws and financial reforms that are in their 'final phase'. The news is not surprising, as the present Government is in what opposition leader Mariano Rajoy has called 'crepuscular' - or to put it even more cruelly: in its death throes. As to regional elections in Andalucía, traditionally held at the same time as the national polls, Zapatero said that it was the President of Andalucía, José Antonio Griñán, who must make that decision. At a party meeting on Monday, Griñán said, "I insist that the elections in Andalucía are fine in March" (the month the nationals had been scheduled for prior to Zapatero's announcement yesterday).