Zapatero officially named Spain PM :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Zapatero officially named Spain PM

Posted by admin on Friday, April 16, 2004 - 08:02 AM

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Socialist Party leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has won a parliamentary vote to become the Spanish prime minister.
The results of Friday's investiture vote were 183 in favor and 148 against, with 19 abstaining. Zapatero is due to be sworn in as Prime Minister on Saturday before King Juan Carlos. He was an opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq that was supported by the outgoing conservative Spanish prime minister. (Related story) He vowed in Parliament to bring home Spain's 1,300 troops in Iraq if the United Nations does not have "political and military control" of Iraq by June 30. Zapatero won an upset victory in the March 14 elections, just three days after the deadly Madrid train bombings. Voters ousted the heavily-favored conservative Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who was not seeking a third term but who had placed a handpicked successor, Mariano Rajoy, at the head of the conservative ticket. In the March elections, Zapatero's Socialists won 164 seats in the 350-seat Spanish Parliament but he fell short of an outright majority of 176 seats. But other smaller political parties voted for Zapatero in the investiture ballot Friday, giving him enough votes to win. Initial reports indicated that Zapatero's total of 183 votes in the investiture was the sum of 164 from the Socialist Party, eight votes from the Catalan Republican Left party, five from the Communist-led United Left, three from the Canary Islands Coalition, two from the Nationalist Gallego Bloc and one from the Aragon Chunta party. Voting against was the conservative Popular Party, with 148 votes. Four other parties, with a total of 19 votes, abstained. The vote came on the same day as Spanish police arrested three more suspects in connection with the deadly Madrid train bombings last month, according to a National Court spokeswoman. (Full story) Two of the suspects are from Saudi Arabian and Egypt -- the first time in the investigation that anyone from those countries has been detained, the spokeswoman said Friday. The other suspect is from Morocco. The three were arrested Monday in the Madrid area. Earlier Friday, a Spanish judge released without charge six Moroccans who had been suspected of playing a role in the March 11 explosions. Judge Juan del Olmo made the decision after a closed-door series of arraignment hearings at Spain's National Court, which began the previous day, the spokeswoman said. The court already has charged 18 people, including 14 Moroccans, in the bombings, some of them with mass murder in the deaths of the 190 people killed in the attacks, while others face lesser charges of collaborating with a terrorist group.

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