Spain's Socialists trail in poll as eurozone crisis bites

A SPANISH opinion poll this weekend showed the opposition Popular Party (PP) ahead of the ruling Socialists by 14 percentage points, setting the conservatives up to govern without help from smaller parties after a 20 November general election.

The poll, published in left-leaning El Pais, reflects the tough task facing the Socialist candidate, former interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, in trying to set himself apart from unpopular outgoing prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The worsening eurozone debt crisis has raised Spain's financing costs and created fears that it will be next in seeking an EU bailout after Greece, Portugal and Ireland .

It has also made an unwelcome austerity the order of the day for Mr Zapatero.

Increasingly weak, on Friday he announced that the election would take place four months early, having decided in April not to run again and eyeing an expected fall in summer unemployment - an issue that is Spaniards' biggest worry, due to the tourist season.

Carried out on last Wednesday and Thursday, before the election announcement, the Metroscopia poll showed left-wing voters as much less motivated than conservative voters and most Socialists - 77 per cent - see a PP victory as unavoidable.

In a general election the PP would win a 44.8 share of the vote versus 30.8 for the Socialists, the poll found. That compares with 44.7 per cent for the conservatives a month ago and 30.4 per cent for their rivals.

The poll also showed that most Spaniards on the left and right believe belonging to the European Union is still positive, while they also believe political decisions are taken based on the dictates of financial markets.