Spain prime minister calls early election for 20 November

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero brings election forward from March as Spain struggles with high unemployment Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has called an early election for 20 November as the country struggles to cope with soaring bond rates and high unemployment. Zapatero announced on Friday that he had decided to bring forward the elections from March in order to bring greater “political and economic stability” to a country that many see as a key to the future of the single currency eurozone. Zapatero imposed austerity and reforms last year as sovereign debt markets threatened to push his country into a situation similar to Portugal, Greece and Ireland – all of which have needed bailouts. He said key reforms would be completed before November. Unemployment is currently running at 21%. The elections will come six months after Zapatero’s socialist party was roundly defeated at regional and municipal elections in May . A poll by the state-owned Centre for Sociological Investigation this week gave the opposition rightwing People’s Party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy, which won the May vote, a seven-point lead over the socialists. That would be enough for the reformist PP to govern, though it would not win an absolute majority and may have to rely on parliamentary support from conservative nationalist parties in Catalonia or the Basque country. Zapatero, who has served two terms since 2004, is not standing at these elections. He is being replaced as the party’s candidate for prime minister by Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, a former deputy prime minister. Rubalcaba has suggested that he would like to take the party further to the left. Spain Europe José Luis Zapatero Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 29, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.