Bad news for Spain

NY Times:

Spain’s governing Socialists triumphed in elections on Sunday, giving Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a fresh mandate to pursue his agenda of sweeping social, cultural and political liberalization.

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With more than 99 percent of the ballots counted, Mr. Zapatero’s party won 43.7 percent of the vote, and the conservative Popular Party 40.1 percent, according to the Interior Ministry. Turnout was high — an estimated 75.4 percent of the country’s 35 million eligible voters — only a shade below the 75.7 percent turnout in 2004.

The election was a rematch of the bitter contest four years ago between Mr. Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy, the head of the Popular Party.

Throughout the past four years, Mr. Rajoy and his party called into doubt Mr. Zapatero’s legitimacy and relentlessly tried to block his agenda.

So it was not surprising that in his speech conceding defeat Sunday night, Mr. Rajoy stood firm on principle, but said nothing about the need for national unity. “Everyone knows we are predictable,” he said. “Everyone knows what we stand for. Everyone knows what I believe in.”

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There is certainly no reason to surrender to the failures of socialism and the failures of Zatero's foreign policy. Zapatero has already surrendered to the terrorist by withdrawing from Iraq and it got him nothing but more attacks from the Islamic religious bigots who think Spain should be in their domain. Socialism is a known failure and it is ridiculous to try to impose it on an intelligent population. It looks like four more years of bad policies for the people of Spain.