Spanish General Election, 2004

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Legislative elections were held in Spain on 14 March 2004. At stake were all 350 seats in the lower house of the Cortes Generales, the Congress of Deputies, and 208 seats in upper house, the Senate. The governing People's Party (PP) was led into the campaign by Mariano Rajoy, successor to outgoing Prime Minister Jos Mar a Aznar. In a result which defied most predictions, the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), led by Jos Luis Rodr guez Zapatero, won a plurality of seats in Congress of Deputies, and was able to form a government with the support of minor parties. The socialists received more votes than expected as a result of the government's handling of the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. In the early moments following the attacks, the national government maintained the theory of the ETA responsibility; when evidence pointed to the possibility that an Islamic extremist group was behind the massacre, the ETA theory lost weight. If Islamic extremists were responsible, the attack could have been perceived by the electorate to be a consequence of the Spanish government's support of the invasion of Iraq. One of the explanations for the PSOE votes was that a certain number of voters, known as the original non voters (who did not intend to vote in the elections like in prior elections), went to the polls for PSOE. Also many members of United Left (IU) switched sides and enlarged the PSOE votes and decreased those of IU.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 551110373X
• ISBN13: 9785511103730
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Book on Demand Ltd.
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.8" x 8.3"