A New Landscape

摘要

It has been an unhappy week for Spain's vociferous regions. On March 1st the nationalists were ousted from power in Gali-cia. Even more strikingly, the Basque nationalists lost a 29-year stranglehold on their regional government. Debate over devolution, tinged by the bloody violence of eta terrorists, has consumed much of Spain's political energy ever since the return of democracy three decades ago. Has the tide now turned?rnBefore that question can be answered, the Basque confusion needs to be cleared up. Only when votes from abroad are counted, a process that began late this week, will the make-up of the Basque parliament certainly be known. That will decide if the Basque Socialists, whose share of the vote rose by a third, can form a minority government. The foreign vote is unlikely to bring much relief to Juan Jose Ibar-retxe, the Basque premier for the past decade. His Basque Nationalist Party (pnv) came out ahead of the Socialists, but his coalition partners were virtually wiped out. For the first time since a Basque parliament was formed in 1980, a majority of deputies are neither nationalist nor separatist. And also for the first time, the pnv is unlikely to provide the lehendakari, as the Basques call their premier.