Madrid, Spain — The leader of Spain's victorious Socialists said Monday he will withdraw his country's support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, restating a campaign promise a day after his party won elections overshadowed by terrorist bombings.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, calling the war that ousted Saddam Hussein an “error,” said he would recall Spanish troops from Iraq by June 30 unless the United Nations assumes control of multinational military operations there.
In a surprise defeat, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservatives on Sunday became the first government that backed Washington in Iraq to be voted from office. The election came amid charges that Mr. Aznar made Spain a target for terrorists by supporting the war, and that his government concealed possible connections between the attack and Islamic terrorists for political gain.
Thursday's train bombings, the worst terrorist attacks in Spain's history, killed 200 people and wounded some 1,500.
A worker covers a Popular Party placard of leader Mariano Rajoy, who lost to the Socialist party in the elections Sunday. (Rafa Rivas/AFP)
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“The military intervention was a political error for the international order, for the search for co-operation, for the defence of the United States,” Mr. Zapatero said, adding that Spain would maintain “cordial” relations with Washington.
“It divided more than it united, there were no reasons for it, time has shown that the arguments for it lacked credibility and the occupation has been managed badly.”
He refused Monday to set a date for a possible withdrawal of Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq, saying only that one would be set after he takes over as prime minister some weeks from now.
“I have said clearly in recent months that, unless there is a change in that the United Nations take control and the occupiers give up political control, the Spanish troops will come back, and the limit for their presence there is June 30,” he said.
U.S. authorities said Monday they believe al-Qaeda had a role in the Madrid attacks. Police also were investigating a possible link between the bombings in Spain and attacks in Casablanca last year, focusing on a Moroccan arrested in Spain over the weekend, a Moroccan official told The Associated Press.
In Sunday's election, the Socialists defeated the ruling Popular party, jumping from 125 seats to 164 in the 350-member Congress of Deputies. The conservatives fell from 183 to 148.
The Spanish stock market shuddered over news that Socialists will take power, with the benchmark Ibex-35 stock index dropping 2.4 per cent at the opening bell. It was down 3.2 per cent shortly after noon local time.
The conservatives' defeat was unexpected. Pre-election polls had projected the Popular party, led by Mariano Rajoy, would win comfortably, and even some exit polls Sunday showed it might win.
But when the ballots were tallied, the Socialists netted 10.9 million to the PP's 9.6 million. Turnout was 77 per cent.
Mr. Zapatero ran for the first time for prime minister against an entrenched government and won. “That broke a lot of precedents,” party campaign manager Jose Blanco said Monday.
The circumstances were exceptional.
The train bombings were followed by countrywide street rallies against the attacks, smaller ones against Mr. Aznar's increasingly beleaguered government and the arrest of five suspects in the bombings, including three Moroccans, and a reported al-Qaeda claim of responsibility in a videotape.
The tape raised the possibility that terrorists aligned with Osama bin Laden had changed the course of a national election. Spain's government has insisted its prime suspect in Thursday's rail bombings was the armed Basque separatist group ETA.
Mr. Zapatero said Monday he would attempt to form a purely Socialist government, not a coalition with other parties.
Late Sunday, Mr. Zapatero started his victory speech by remembering those killed in the railway bombings. “At this moment I think of the lives that were broken by terror on Thursday,” he said, then asked the crowd to join him in a minute of silence.
“My most immediate priority will be to fight terrorism,” he said. The Spanish Socialist Workers party ruled from 1982 to 1996 but ran afoul of corruption scandals and was voted out in 1996, when Mr. Aznar took power.
Savouring victory again, 1,000 jubilant supporters cheered and waved the party's red flag Sunday outside Socialist headquarters. But they, too, mourned those killed in the railway blasts. “Not all of us are here. Two hundred are missing,” the crowd shouted.
“I think the party won because of people's frustration people about the Popular party getting us into the war in Iraq,” said one of them, housewife Loli Carrasco Gomez, 36.
Of the troops in Iraq, she said: “I hope they all come home and never go back.”
Mr. Aznar chose not to seek a third term, saying he wanted renewal in government and his party.
