Spain did not concede to terrorists.

[FDRrocks]

Lets just lay this out, finally.

80 percent of Spain was against the illegale
invasion of Iraq, right? 100% of Spain was pissed of at the terror attack, right? I would imagine the latter is true, unless Spanish muslims were in favor (I know Spain was Islamic at some point, not sure about how radical, if it was at all.

I've seen people here say Socialists won this election b/c of the terror bombings. Sorry that isn't true. There is nothing to support it.

To say that the Spanish elected Socialists b/c they care about thier fellow people and are anti-war makes a lot more sense, given the percentage of people who didnt support this war. The jihad is over a century old and has NOTHING to do with any country who doesn't declare itself an Islamic state.

Remember, even the Bolsheviks rawn on an anti-war stances (anti-WWI). Not to say that there is a corralation, but when you look at the statistics of support for the illegal war, the spanish election makes alot of sense.

Just b/c the new government of spain wont bomb brown people doesn't mean they conceeded to terrorism.

[ermoore]

1. 'fraid not.

Polls a few days before the bombings had the conservative party up by 5 points. The elections were two days after the bombings and the Socialists won by 6 points. The bombings were certainly a very, very large factor.

[praxiz]

2. So...

some people decided that the sitting president was making some horrible decisions in the war on terrorism and decided to punish him for that.

The socialist win is not a victory for terrorism, it's a sign that Spain no longer wants to tag along with Bush on mindless wars who will only create more hatred to wards the west.

Oh and PS: I live in Norway, who's also on that list of targets for terrorism. So don't think I don't have a personal interest in seeing my government give Bush the finger and pull out of the Iraq-war, which we all know has NOTHING to do with the war on terrorism.

[anarchy1999]

6. I think Spain, with a vote of the people, just joined with France and

Germany.

Thanks to you all.

Maybe you will all help us here, get it right, someday soon. Here is to hope! Salud!

[K-W]

3. Yep, but much of his point is still valid.

It is much more likely that they saw the conservatives actions in iraq, bumbling after the attack, and the fact that the attack occurred as failures on thier part in fighting terrorism.

Its possible they voted for the socialists because they felt the terrorists were winning and wanted to beat them. Certainly much more likely than this was an action where the spanish people ignored the fight against terror.

[Robin Hood]

5. Those numbers are within margins of error.

We are not talking about 10-20% difference here.

[non sociopath skin]

4. The surge of support for the socialists ....

.. over the weekend suggests that what changed things was that the Spanish premier deliberately sought to mislead the public and the media into believing that ETA (opposition to whom had been a cornerstone of the PP's manifesto)had been responsible for the bombing outrage even when the bulk of evidence suggested otherwise.

People do not like to be lied to, especially when burying their dead.

The Skin

[Nihil]

7. Spot on!

The only way the terrorist bomb "influenced" things was in highlighting
the dishonesty of the ruling party: instead of investigating (while
comforting & supporting the victims) they preferred to try making some
political capital out of the event by lying through their teeth.

> People do not like to be lied to, especially when burying their dead.

... and the sooner we get this message into the heads of politicians
around the world, the better.

Nihil

[K-W]

8. That kinda supports the conservative spin though

which is that the Spanish people didnt think this through and were just acting emotionally, and thus made a reckless decision. Its important to highlight the other reasons that people voted the way they did. Sure this event may have swung power to the socialits, but most of the socialist voters were already voting for them, and they may well have made a significant gain without the attack.

[July]

10. Yes, 2 of 3 network polls shown on TVE (Spanish TV)

showed the socialists and the Aznar party with similar levels of support before the election. People I've talked to in Spain seemed to have believed that incumbency would benefit Aznar's party.

Responding to the poster suggesting "appeasement" by the Spaniards, I have to say that it sounds as if you are not very well informed about Spain and the Spaniards' views on terrorism. At the time of the attacks, people assumed ETA was responsible and came out in force in all regions of the country, including the Basque region. ETA still operates in Spain, but it has much less support than it has had in the past, and the Spanish people are firmly opposed to terrorism.

The governing party was shown to be misleading the people about the sources of terrorism. People saw the pushing of ETA as the source of the attacks as a way for the government, which has been strongly against ETA, to enhance its chances at the polls, and they also saw the government's suppression of information about an Islamic group's responsibility as an attempt to keep people from seeing the attacks as payback for Spanish participation in the Iraq war. When it came out that it was likely an Islamist group's attack, the people felt that the government was manipulating a national tragedy for electoral gain. THAT'S what cost Aznar's party the election.

[underpants]

12. I just think they held leaders accountable for security failures

Did hte fact that 70-8-% of the public was against the war to start with of course but I think the bottom line is that they didn't let the people who dropped the ball get away with it. They might have a healthy and robust press over there that didn't try to persuade them to stay the course too.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Spain is fervently anti-terrorist

11 million, out of a population of 40 million, turned out on the streets in the anti-terrorist marches on Friday night - with a day's notice. Over 27% - that's a higher proportion than Bush got to vote for him from the American electorate. Hell, it's even a higher proportion than voted for Gore.

[Vladimir]

11. Absolutely spot on

I would add only one thing - its also about the turnout. What the bombings did was wake up a lot of the disenfranchised left in Spain who felt that their votes don't count and that Aznar would win anyhow because that is what the media was telling them to think. That they voted at all was a consequence of the bombings, but which way they voted wasn't.

Of course it is also correct to say that Aznar did his party no favours by trying to pin this on ETA and lying about it. But I am not sure if that would have made a difference had the majority of the Spanish public not been against him in the first place. The lesson to learn is this - if you feel disenfranchised, go and vote. Shit does, in fact, happen.

V