Word: eta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Rajoy immediately suspended all campaign activities, and the Spanish parliament convened a special session late on Friday afternoon to express its unanimous condemnation of the assassination. Socialist spokesperson Diego Lopez Garrido confirmed that Sunday's election would be held as planned, assuring the press that "no matter how hard ETA tries," it will not impede "Spaniards' freedom of expression." Yet the question of whether - and how - the killing might affect the vote was on everyone's mind...
...knew that this might happen," said Gorka Landaburu, editor of the journal Cambio 16 and himself a victim of a previous ETA bombing. "There had been threats, and ETA often attacks during elections." Indeed, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba last month raised the country's security alert to its highest level, saying "We believe that ETA is going to try to kill before the elections." This afternoon he told a hastily convened press conference that ETA "will never intimidate Spain's society...
...opposition Popular Party has repeatedly attacked the governing Socialists for not doing enough to eradicate ETA. The conservative party initially lent its support to the 2006 peace process, but soon began criticizing the government's strategies. And after ETA broke the truce by blowing up a parking garage at Madrid's Barajas airport in December of 2006, killing two, the PP has sharply criticized Zapatero for continuing to "negotiate with terrorists" and lying about it to the Spanish people...
...killing would affect the election, Arístegui was unequivocal: "Absolutely not." Juan Aviles, security expert at the Spain's National Distance University, agreed. "It's not going to influence the campaign. It's true that some could see it as evidence that Zapatero's strategy of negotiating with ETA was mistaken, but voters could also show solidarity with the [Socialist] victim...
...assassination may also affect voting in the Basque Country, where the Socialists and the Basque Nationalist Party are competing for congressional seats. Supporters of the outlawed Batasuna (widely considered the political wing of ETA) and Basque Nationalist Action (ANV), which the government recently banned for its connections to Batasuna, have called for Basques to abstain from voting in an election they see as illegitimate. But according to Landaburu, the killing, if it was an attempt to enforce the boycott, might well backfire. "I wouldn't be surprised if people turn out en masse to vote not only in Spain...