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Letter to the editor

Spaniards mourn politician

It's unclear how the assassination may affect today's general election.

MONDRAGON, Spain - Weeping and clutching flowers, thousands of people mourned a small-town politician killed by a suspected Basque separatist in an attack that shocked Spain two days before a general election.

For many Spaniards, the timing of the violence was reminiscent of the March 2004 train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid three days before elections.

"Just like four years ago, our date with the polls is stained with blood through the vile action of terrorism," Spain's top-selling newspaper, El Pais, said in a front-page editorial.

But it was unclear how today's election would be affected by Isaias Carrasco's killing in the Basque town of Mondragon on Friday. There could be a wave of sympathy benefiting Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero - or a backlash against him for negotiating in vain with the armed separatist group ETA.

Four years ago, Zapatero's Socialists came to power after the train bombings. The conservative government at the time blamed ETA for the attacks even as evidence mounted that Islamic militants were responsible. Many Spaniards saw that as a bid to deflect perceptions that Spain had become a target for al-Qaida because of the government's support for the Iraq war, and the conservatives lost the election.

In three polls released last week, Zapatero's party had a 4-point lead over the conservative Popular Party, led by Mariano Rajoy. The campaign had been dominated by a slowing economy and concerns over illegal immigration.

On Saturday, an estimated 3,000 people, crying and carrying wreaths, packed a square outside the church of St. John the Baptist in Mondragon where Carrasco, 43, was gunned down outside his apartment Friday.

Carrasco's eldest daughter, Sandra Carrasco, 20, appealed for massive voter turnout today as a way to defy ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in its decades-old battle for an independent Basque homeland.

[Last modified March 9, 2008, 00:37:04]