Socialist candidate, Touriño, has lost Galicia although Basque one, Patxi López, has won the Basque Country. Spanish newspaper ABC.es is the one which sums it up better from my point of view. The campaign has been hard because Judge Garzón began a process against an alleged corruption net against some PP’s Madrid-based candidates (that is, center-right, although they are each day less right and more I don’t know what…). But some photos in which Judge Garzón appeared hunting deers with Socialist Justice Minister Fernández Bermejo and the latter’s resignation after those photos appeared in the press, the huge expenses Socialist President of Galicia’s Autonomous Government Touriño made in official cars, chairs for meeting rooms, etc. in the middle of the economic crisis and the photo of Galician Vice-President Anxo Quintana in a yacht with Mr. Rey, a builder who was awarded afterwards with several huge contracts, have caused Zapatero to lose for the first time an election. He was not a candidate this time, but he worked hard during this campaign: he went there a lot, gave speeches and made interviews for TVs, radio stations and newspapers, etc. What is more, the campaign was designed in both parties to be a test of national proportions, not only regional ones.

But there is another consideration to make: in Basque Country, he must choose between the change Socialists proposed which basically means outing the nationalists from the Basque Government for the first time in 29 years and building an alliance with PP and the new-born leftist party UPyD (basically a “pro-constitutional Government”, although considering that Zapatero is pro-constitution, after stating, among other things, that “the concept of Nation is a disputed one”, referring to Spain, can be considered at least, as exotic). Or to contradict the whole of their campaign and turn to an alliance with Basque Nationalist Party, something they have already done in the past.

The alternative has a lot of importance, specially after Zapatero has called everything that can be imagined to PP’s leaders and voters. Even after Rajoy -who is not a very charismatic man, I would consider him phlegmatic- promised he was going to help the Government because of the dimensions of the economic crisis.

Press review:

1. BBC: Basques short of overall majority.
2. CNN: Basques nationalists win in Sunday vote but could still lose power.
3. Le Figaro: La droite reprend la Galice.
4. Corriere: Paese Baschi ai nationalisti moderati.

In the last Garzon’s judicial operation (jan 20th) against alleged Al-Qaeda collaborators, a Pakistani named Abdul Razzaq Sadiq was detained. It has been discovered he is Executive Secretary’s of the Catalan Socialist Party (the branch of Zapatero’s party in Catalonia) in the Catalonian city Ciutat Vella. Interior Ministry’s press release published his surnames changed, so no one could guess who he really was. In all police’s documents, his surnames were in right order, so the change was made only afterwards in the Interior Ministry’s press release.

Three days after, they were freed by a Garzón’s resolution, which said that he didn’t have proofs which could link them with the terrorist group’s financing scheme. But they had been accused of sending illegally money to Pakistan.

via Un detenido por financiar a Al Qaeda es un cargo del PSC de Barcelona.

This case makes me think: why some people are detained and only three days after the judge “discovers” that there was no reason for that arrest? It’s ridiculous. All were freed. Spanish police rarely messes up in these cases as they have truly good experience in dealing with terrorist thugs. So why on earth did this happen? Yes, I know that “people are innocent till proven guilty”, but isn’t this a kind of “rare” thing to arrest several people on these so grave charges to free them only three days after?

Catalonia is one of the areas of Spain where Islamic terrorism (if we consider included in that term also financing, training and recruiting jihadoterrorists) is most spread. Last people arrested were accused of forging documents for Al-Qaeda (scroll down for English translation). The most important groups in Catalonia are both Salafists and Hibz ut-Tahrir (the one who asked for the creation of global Caliphate in an event in Indonesia, which recruits mostly online).