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Spaniards begin voting in general election, Aznar favourite

MADRID: Spaniards began voting on Sunday in a general election where Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was tipped by opinion polls to win a second four-year term.

Polling stations opened across the country. State radio said weather in most of the country would be fine for the day, supporting Spain's traditionally high turnouts. Around 34 million voters are registered for Sunday's election.

A final round of polls published last weekend gave Aznar a lead of between 3.8 and 4.7 percentage points over the Socialists headed by Joaquin Almunia, a former trade union leader and minister.

Aznar is expected to benefit from the strength of Spain's economy, which has cut unemployment and raised living standards.

Aznar, 47, a former tax inspector who heads one of the few conservative governments remaining in the European Union, is asking voters for another term to pursue high-growth policies and press his hardline stance against Basque separatists.

But Socialist candidate Joaquin Almunia, 51, accuses Aznar of neglecting ordinary Spaniards and says the country would be better off governed by the broad, leftist coalition he is pledging to create.

Overhanging election day is the threat of further attacks by the Basque separatist group ETA, which has killed three people in car bombings since late January.

ETA's political allies have urged Basques to boycott the election in protest against the government's refusal to negotiate demands for an independent state carved out of northern Spain and southern France.

But mainstream politicians have urged Basques not to be intimidated, and thousands of police were being deployed on Sunday to protect voters.

The polls point to the ruling Popular Party improving on its current 156 seats in the 350-seat parliament, but they also suggest Aznar will remain short of an absolute majority and again be dependent on support from Catalan nationalists.

Aznar is Spain's first right-leaning prime minister since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

His main campaign strategy has been to claim the political middle ground and focus voters' attention on the economy, taking credit for buoyant growth and falling unemployment.

But Almunia has argued that Aznar's policies have mostly benefited wealthy business interests, including the prime minister's own friends.

Despite that, Aznar -- who has confounded critics who said he was too colourless to last after charismatic Socialist Felipe Gonzalez -- goes into Sunday's election leading in the polls.

"The main question now is not whether Aznar will win but by what margin he will win," said Charles Powell, a British political scientist who specialises in Spanish government.

If the projections are accurate, Aznar's party stands to capture between 158 and 171 seats -- still short of the 176 needed for a majority. The Socialists, who now have 141 seats, are seen taking between 131 and 144.

The party that wins the most seats automatically gains the right to try to form a new government.

Aznar would be all but certain to turn again to the Catalan nationalists, who backed his minority administration after the Popular Party narrowly defeated the Socialists in 1996.

Some 3,000 police officers were reported to be on duty in the Basque region, where radical pro-independence group Euskal Herritarrok, considered the political wing of armed separatist group ETA, called for a boycott of the election.-Reuters