Gañamos 4.2 !!! + International Herald Tribune

Esto viña no International Herald Tribune do 17 de xuño:
End of the road in Spain?
ReutersFRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2005
MADRID Manuel Fraga, the last political survivor of Francisco Franco's dictatorship, risks losing power on Sunday in an election in Spain's isolated northwest region of Galicia.
A giant of Spanish politics, the 82-year-old Fraga has governed the rural region virtually unopposed since 1989, making it a fiefdom of the center-right Popular Party, which he founded.
But opinion polls show Fraga may lose his majority in the 75-seat Galician Legislature after a campaign plagued by gaffes and embarrassing outbursts.
That would open the door for Spain's governing Socialist Party to form a coalition with regional nationalists. The Popular Party was ousted in the national election in March 2004 after the bombing of trains by Islamic militants.
"It is obvious that the once indestructible Fraga is no longer in condition, either physically or mentally, to continue in power," El Mundo, a right-leaning newspaper, said in a editorial.
Fraga's campaign has caused embarrassment to the Popular Party's leader, Mariano Rajoy, who has returned to his native Galicia to campaign.
Fraga was forced to apologize after comparing wavering voters to women "who don't give an honest answer if you ask them how many men they slept with."
Fraga is no stranger to gaffes. During a shooting trip with the family of Franco, a fellow Galician who ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975, he accidentally shot and wounded the dictator's daughter.
Fraga's record in modernizing Galicia was marred by his handling of the Prestige oil tanker disaster of 2002, which tarred Galicia's rocky coves and unspoiled estuaries with noxious fuel. Millions of euros in subsidies helped to clean up the area and to soothe tempers.
"Fraga has been a populist leader," said Carlos Barrera, a historian at Navarre University. "It is likely he will lose, but not certain. His problem is he needs a majority to win."



Chama M. dende a Quintana: hai festa rachada!!! así que algúns celebrámolo dúas veces!!!