Socialists awaken to electoral "tsunami" as voters vent anger

The day after Spain held regional and municipal elections that were to all intents and purposes a massive vote of punishment against Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez's central Socialist government, the victors tried to refrain from gloating while the losers tried not to panic.

Although surveys had indicated that the Popular Party (PP) would sweep to victory on the back of the Socialists' perceived mishandling of the economic crisis, even PP leaders had not envisioned the magnitude of their triumph.

The May 22 "tsunami" left the PSOE to ponder its worst municipal results in history (27.8 percent of the total vote, versus 37.58 percent for the PP). That is nearly 10 points and two million votes fewer than the conservatives, who doubled the lead they had in 1995, shortly before winning the Popular Party's first-ever general elections the following year.

The PP was also the most-voted party in all the regions that were holding elections save one, making the conservatives a hegemonic force throughout Spain.

PP leaders sought to play it cool on Sunday night, noting simply that this is the best result in the PP's history.

Rajoy said his party will work to help all those Spaniards who have been hit by the 21-percent jobless rate and the government's austerity measures. There was no mention of early general elections, which would clearly benefit the conservatives in the current context.Yet on Monday, Rajoy- in his own, indirect way- did broach the subject in an address to his party's executive committee.

"I want to clarify my position regarding the government of Spain," he told an audience that was not allowed to ask any questions.

"Last July [...] we told [the government] it should call Spaniards to the polls. Some liked this idea, some didn't. Now there are more people who like it. We told Zapatero it was the best thing for the general interests of Spaniards. He did not. It was his prerogative not to do so. Our position remains the same and I won't repeat it every day because it doesn't make sense to do so: this government is in no condition to govern." To complicate matters even further, the only Socialist regional premier who will remain in power, Guillermo Fernández Vara of Extremadura, said in a radio interview Monday that if he were Zapatero, he would consider calling a snap poll.

PSOE's deputy secretary general, José Blanco, on Monday confirmed there will be no early elections. Instead, the party will focus on finding a new candidate to run for office in March, and work on a new "ambitious project" for 2012. Blanco said Sunday's vote marked "a shift towards the center-right" but asked for "realism." He said this was "no time to feel sorry for ourselves, but to pull ourselves together."

The party is moving swiftly to organize primaries to select the person who will replace Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero as the party's main candidate to secure La Moncloa for four more years. Until now, it had been a given that the position would go to either of two party heavyweights, Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba or Defense Minister Carme Chacón.

Yet even that is no longer clear, following statements by Blanco to the effect that calling primaries should not be confused with actually holding them. The message seems to be that one of the two could refrain from running, leaving just one candidate and bypassing the need for an internal party vote.

While that important matter is being settled, the Socialists are ruling out any resignations over their crushing defeat, not even in Madrid, where the Socialist tandem Tomás Gómez-Jaime Lissavetzky drew the poorest results in party history at the regional and municipal levels, respectively.