Posted on 03/14/2004 5:27:38 PM PST by Pokey78
Spain's voters carried a monumental burden into their polling stations yesterday.
In two very different districts of Madrid, one working class and the site of one of Thursday's explosions, the other extremely affluent and loyal to the conservative government, people spoke passionately about the new moral international dimensions to what had, until four days earlier, seemed a humdrum election.
In El Pozo, where one of the trains exploded, the Socialist Party was expecting its usual landslide victory. Many in the neighbourhood had lost friends or family in the explosion. "The government is to blame for the attacks," said Tamara Pizarro, 20. "France and Germany stayed out of the war, so they have nothing to fear. Aznar has blood on his hands."
Until Thursday, Manuel Perez, 66, had been one of the few supporters of the prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, in the barrio. "I've changed my mind," he said. "As a society we need something new." For the first time, he planned to vote for the Socialist candidate.
Ramon Fernandez de Mauro, 33, a supporter of the United Left, said: "The People's Party [Mr Aznar's] is engaged in a war. But it isn't our war. He has made this alliance with the United States which we never asked for. I am sorry for you being British because you have the same problem."
"Aznar got his war, but we got the dead," said Victoria Ruiz, 38, a Socialist Party helper at the polling station. She said Spain's involvement in Iraq had given al-Qa'eda a reason to attack it. "Now I am frightened. Al-Qa'eda is not like Eta, it's like a ghost. You don't know who you're fighting."
In the Barrio Salamanca, Madrid's Knightsbridge and rock-solid Aznar territory, voters said the attacks had reaffirmed their belief that only a party of the Right could take on terrorism.
"I feel sad that we're in the war in Iraq, but Aznar is the only leader we have had in Spain who refuses to negotiate with terrorists," said Elisabeth Marin, a civil servant in her forties. "The Left-wing parties don't do anything about it and know they will get votes by blaming Aznar for what al-Qa'eda did."
Carlos Esbert, 26, a university professor interviewing voters at the Barrio Salamanca polling station for a study about how the attacks affected the election, said that on the day of the attacks people felt fear and confusion.
The following day they felt pain and sadness. "Now they are feeling anger, which in most cases means they are even more committed to the party they were with before. They don't want to feel the terrorists changed their minds."
His views seemed to be supported by the disputes at the shrine to the victims at Atocha station. Some people were putting up posters above the candles and flowers denouncing Mr Aznar and the invasion of Iraq. Others were tearing them down, saying they were disrespectful of the dead.
Back in the Barrio Salamanca, Lourdes Fernandez, 18, a student voting in her first election, said she would be supporting the People's Party. "I understand the people who are angry about the war. The ones killed on Thursday were working class people who weren't involved in government or anything and now they suffer."
She did not feel the government had disclosed everything it knew about the attacks in case it suffered at the polls. "But it's no reason not to vote for them."
You think? What will you say in November when your countrymen elect Kerry?
Seems the Spanish don't have the same grit.
Wonder if the British still do.
Right.....
Ah, so the realization is beginning to dawn that they are in a fight.
This is what our elections are about this fall. This is ultimatly a religious war. They kill Jews and Christians because of hate, the kill shi'ite Muslims because of hate, they Kill Buddhists because of hate. All sects of Muslims hate us. Kerry and the Socialists in Spain want to by a few years so they can consolidate their power.
Need to raise that voting age!
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