11‑M

Prime Minister José María Aznar tried to do with 11‑M what George W. Bush did with 9/11: cynically exploit a national tragedy to attack people who had nothing to do with it. Spaniards voted him out for being a crooked liar, not to capitulate to terrorists.

Though they could blame the Aznar govern­ment for making Spain a target of al‐Qaida by joining our coalition of the billing and sending troops to Iraq against the people’s will, according to polls, Spaniards were angrier at his administration for playing politics with the 11‑M train bombings. A Barcelona attorney wrote about her thoughts to Randy Paul:

So, the PP knew that their antiterrorist policy (against ETA) was one of its main winning cards, and they didn’t hesitate to blatantly manipulate the 11‑M attack, suppressing information, calling people to demonstrate against ETA, knowing all the while that the Antiterrorist Information Brigade had as good as discarded ETA authorship a few hours after the attack. The antiterrorist police heads even threatened to resign at the madness of it all, and this was leaked to the opposition and the press. And all the while the state TVE showing documentaries about ETA activities right until late Saturday night, on the eve of the election, and failing to report live on Minister Acebes informing about the Al‐Q line of investigation which he had been forced to acknowledge — forced by his own angered police heads and by the media which had all the information but was withholding it just long enough for the Minister to do the decent thing. This heartless manipulation of the dead for political gain clinched it — it was the last straw, it galvanised a portion of apathetic socialist voters who would have otherwise abstained, galvanised first‐time voters, and galvanised Izquierda Unida voters (which include communists) who opted for heaping their vote on the PSOE for a higher chance of defeating Aznar (IU lost 5 seats because of that). In Spain, government change has always been heralded by a higher participation of voters. In a nutshell, many Spaniards felt badly abused, and acted accordingly. So, yes, 11‑M influenced the vote, but not because we are overcome by fear, or because we think that we can avert further attacks, but because we will only put up with so much lying and manipulation, and especially not when it is the dead and their families that are being heartlessly and shamelessly manipulated.

In fine democratic tradition, Spaniards kicked out a corrupt, dishonest government by electing themselves a new one. May we follow their example.