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    November 20, 2011

Spain Votes; Conservatives Poised for Victory

   VOA News
   A woman cast her vote in a voting station in Madrid, November 20, 2011.
   Photo: AP
   A woman cast her vote in a voting station in Madrid, November 20, 2011.

   Spaniards are voting Sunday in parliamentary elections dominated by the
   country's economic crisis that are expected to sweep the opposition
   conservatives into power after nearly eight years of Socialist rule.
   Pre-election polls say Mariano Rajoy's center-right Popular Party could
   win its largest victory ever - likely an absolute majority - in Spain's
   350-member parliament.
   Rajoy is running against Socialist candidate Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba.
   Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero decided not to seek a third
   term as his approval ratings sank.
   The election comes as Spain fights to avoid slipping back into
   recession for the second time in two years. Unemployment stands at 21.5
   percent - the highest rate in 15 years.
   Spain's economic growth rate ground to a halt in the third quarter,
   after rising just 0.2 percent during the previous three months. The
   country also is being dragged down by mounting debt and a bleak
   economic outlook.
   Voters are angry with the Socialists for failing to act swiftly to
   prevent the slide in the eurozone's fourth-largest economy and for
   enacting austerity measures that have cut wages, benefits and jobs.
   An outright victory would hand Rajoy a mandate to enforce the deep cuts
   seen as necessary to balance Spain's books and steer the country from
   financial insolvency.
   But if the Popular Party leader wins, he has a difficult balancing act
   ahead, needing to lower the deficit while boosting investor confidence
   without raising taxes or cutting spending so much that it drags the
   economy into another recession.
   Along with Italy, Spain is considered too big a country to bail out the
   same way the European Union and the International Monetary Fund have
   propped up Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
   Zapatero's government liberalized the traditionally Roman Catholic
   country by introducing reforms such as gay marriage. But he is seen as
   having been slow to react to Spain's financial crisis and the bursting
   housing bubble.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.