MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Landslides for Rajoy in Galicia but Basques raise the question of ‘independence’

“Time to start thinking as a people; time to stop orders from Madrid”, said Bildu leader Laura Mintegi

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy conservative Popular Party on Sunday retained power in his home region of Galicia despite recession and biting austerity measures, official results showed.

The result means Rajoy has avoided a political humiliation in a traditional Popular Party stronghold that would have undermined his standing just as he tries to convince world markets that he can fix Spain's finances and economy.

But a second regional election in the Basque Country added to the Spanish leader's challenges as results showed a new separatist coalition had finished in second place, just after the Basque Nationalist Party which seeks greater autonomy for the region.

The two regional votes came at a critical time for Rajoy, who is agonising over whether and when to seek a Euro zone sovereign rescue to finance the nation's runaway public debt.

Rajoy's Popular Party captured 41 seats in the 75-seat Galician parliament, up from 38 seats in the outgoing assembly, official results showed with almost all of the votes counted.

The Popular Party had been defending a tight but absolute majority in Galicia, Rajoy's home region, which has a population of 2.8 million, and opinion polls a week before the elections indicated it stood a good chance of success.

However the scenario was entirely different in the Basque Country, which is holding its first regional vote since armed separatists ETA renounced the use of bombs and guns.

The Basque Nationalist Party came in first place having captured 27 seats in the 75-seat Basque parliament, followed by the separatist Euskal Herria Bildu coalition which got 21 seats.

“It is time to start thinking as a people, as a nation. It is time to stop the orders from Madrid,” the head of the Euskal Herria Bildu coalition, novelist Laura Mintegi, told a post-election rally in Bilbao.

Bildu popularity raises questions of Basque independence. The Bildu alliance appears to have filled the space left by the ETA-linked Batasuna party, which was outlawed in 2003.

The big question now is whether the Basque Nationalist Party will seek an alliance with Bildu or another party. Political analysts believe a Basque regional government that includes Bildu will bring questions of Basque independence to the forefront of the political debate.

”If it is with Bildu, the question of (Basque) identity, of ties with Spain, will play a central role in its coalition,” said Anton Losada, political science professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela.