Turnout on the slide as Spain holds municipal, regional polls

Spain voted Sunday in regional and municipal polls representing a major test for the Socialist government ahead of general elections expected early next year amid unrest in the Basque region.

But turnout was markedly down on the last such polls in 2003 with the interior ministry putting participation at 51.56 percent at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT), two hours before poll booths closed, compared with 54.30 percent at the same stage four years earlier.

Analysts say the drop could affect the Socialists, who were successful in getting their supporters to turn out in the 2004 general election, with right wing voters traditionally more likely to mobilise.

That poll saw high participation as it came three days after the Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people and left national feelings running high.

For the Spanish press, both Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and conservative Popular Party opposition leader Mariano Rajoy were using the poll as a dry run for next year's legislative elections.

"Zapatero and Rajoy are looking for validation today in the ballot box of their national policies," wrote the centre-left daily El Pais.

Since 1983, the party that has won the most votes in local elections has gone on to win the national elections.

Since losing the 2004 general election the Popular Party has consistently trailed the Socialists in opinion polls, albeit by a narrow margin.

Rajoy has constantly slammed what he terms the government's soft line on armed Basque separatist group ETA, a charge Zapatero rejects.

Low-level Basque violence marred the run-up to the vote with pro-independence voters angered by the exclusion of myriad lists judged linked to ETA's political wing Batasuna, banned four years ago but which in 1999 won 20 percent of the municipal vote.

On Sunday morning, supporters of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) clashed with local politicians.

The Basque region is not holding regional elections, but voters there were turning out to elect municipal councillors.

Judges banned a swathe of civic lists and a new party on the grounds they would allow Batasuna to compete via the back door and the courts also banned most, but not all, lists of the Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) grouping on the same grounds.

Josu Jon Imaz, chairman of the moderate nationalist Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), in power regionally, slammed the protestors, noting they had not condemned the December 30 Madrid airport bombing claimed by ETA which shattered a nine-month ceasefire and killed two Ecuadorans.

"Today they are screaming and shouting but when they should have raised their voices on December 30 they were silent," said Imaz.

ETA has been blamed for more than 800 deaths during its four-decade campaign to achieve independence for Basque regions but prior to the bombing Zapatero had been trying to work towards a negotiated settlement.

The Socialists currently control five of the 13 regional assemblies up for grabs, the Popular Party controls seven and a nationalist party controls the assembly in Spain's Canary Islands.

Some 35 million registered voters are called on to elect 8,111 mayors nationally, while a smaller number of voters, 18.8 million, will select members of 13 of Spain's 17 regional assemblies.