Basque Nationalist Party wins biggest slice in Spanish vote

The Basque Nationalist Party won a convincing mandate to return to power in the Basque region of Spain on Sunday after serving in opposition for three years.

The party, known by its Spanish initials PNV, took 27 seats in the 78 member parliament, ahead of 21 seats for pro-independence coalition Euskal Herria Bildu, a convincing win for Basque nationalist groups.

Leader Inigo Urkullu, who campaigned on a message of compromise with other parties, reiterated his stance in his victory speech, saying the next challenge for this industrial region which has seen 50 years of political violence would be building a "definitive peace."

"We are immersed in a financial crisis. We have rising unemployment and poverty and we have financial problems in our public institutions," Urkullu told supporters in Bilbao on Sunday.

"We have the challenge of designing a new political project shared by all Basques," he added.

In Galicia, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party increased its absolute majority, in a region where austerity measures were introduced even before he took power as prime minister last year, with 41 seats in a legislature of 75.

After voting on Sunday, Galician President Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who is also Popular Party's candidate for president of the Galician regional government, told supporters that Galicians can trust his party.

"It's not normal in a crisis like this, that a government receive so much support - like the support we received on this day," Feijoo told supporters in Santiago de Compostela.

Spain has separatist groups in Galicia, the Basque region and prosperous and influential Catalonia.

Basque voters on Sunday ousted Socialist leader Patxi Lopez - who had ruled thanks to a pact with the PP - from the 75-seat regional legislature.

One of the more widely known separatist groups is ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom.

It is classified as a terrorist group by the European Union, the US and Spain.

The group is blamed for the killings of more than 825 people in a violent campaign of bombings and shootings for an independent Basque state straddling the border with France.


AP