PP uses fight against ETA as ammunition for upcoming race

With regional and local races just over a month away, the opposition Popular Party has begun taking swipes at the Socialists by bringing up the fight against ETA as an electoral issue. The Socialist party, meanwhile accused PP leader Mariano Rajoy of "playing dangerously" with the cross-party antiterrorism pact by using ETA "purely for electoral purposes."

The nagging question over how long it will take before the Basque terrorist group is put out of existence has crept into the campaign for the May 22 local and regional races with Rajoy accusing the Socialist government of trying to negotiate with ETA. "Terrorists don't run in elections," Rajoy said during a book presentation on Wednesday with former Prime Minister José María Aznar. "The PP never negotiated with ETA."

At a news conference, Socialist spokeswoman Elena Valenciano read from the antiterrorist pact in which the parties pledge never to use anti-ETA policy for electoral purposes.

Rajoy's comments that the Aznar government never negotiated with ETA "is very serious and deserves a strong response from all of society."

Rajoy explained that minutes of ETA's meetings with Aznar emissaries demonstrate that PP officials went to speak with the terrorists representatives "with their hands in their pocket" and with no proposed deal. "Others did negotiate," the PP leader said in reference to the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Rodríguez Zapatero, "and they don't deny it because they can't."