Spain's ruling conservatives were voted out of power, as angry voters seemed to have punished the government in the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings in which 200 people were killed.
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Increasing evidence that Al Qaeda may have carried out Thursday's railway bombings because of the government's deeply unpopular decision to support US President George W Bush's invasion of Iraq directed public fury at the ruling conservative Popular Party.
Up to 90 percent of the population opposed the war. The massive nationwide protests in February 2003 were only surpassed in size by demonstrations late Friday against the Madrid attacks that attracted nearly 12 million (1.2crore) people.
Outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who last year handed the party's reins to former deputy Mariano Rajoy in order to retire after the elections, was jostled and booed when he voted on Sunday.
Anti-government protests in several cities on the eve of the elections also featured thousands of demonstrators yelling, 'Aznar: your war, our dead' and 'Resign'.
Acebes and other officials had insisted up to the day of the elections that the Basque separatist group ETA, and not Al Qaeda, was the prime suspect in the 10 bombings on four trains near Madrid, which also left 1,500 wounded.
But the discovery of a van with detonators and a tape in Arabic reciting Koranic verses, the arrest of three Moroccans and two Indians linked to an unexploded bomb found at one of the attack sites, and a video found late Saturday in which a man claimed the attacks in the name of Al Qaeda, undermined their case.
"We claim responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly two and a half years after the attacks in New York and Washington," the man on the video, speaking Arabic with a Moroccan accent, said.
"This is an answer to your cooperation with the Bush criminals and their allies. This is an answer to crimes which you committed in the world, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be more, so help us God."
In a threat, which experts said came from Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader on October 18, 2003 had warned his operatives would strike at Spain, Australia, Britain, Italy and other countries which helped the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The bombings and the video message prompted Spanish authorities to implement exceptional security measures for the elections. Other European countries, the United States and its allies in the occupation of Iraq also stepped up vigilance.
The EU was considering calling an emergency meeting of interior ministers after a warning from Germany that possible Al Qaeda involvement in the Madrid massacre raised the terrorism stakes in Europe.
Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who is to become Spain's prime minister after winning 43 percent of the vote compared to the government's 38 percent, declared a minute's silence for the victims in Madrid before launching into his victory speech.
"My immediate priority will be to fight all forms of terrorism," Zapatero later vowed.
AFP
