Madrid bombings foiled - Spanish election result in 2004?

Thande

Donor
Because Captain Zed mentioned it on another thread.

Let's say the Spanish security services manage to foil, rather publicly, the train bombers of March 2004 before they can commit their atrocities. What effect would this have on the election of a few days later?
 

Markus

Banned
"Foil, rather publicly"? In this case the government can´t even try to blame ETA, won´t be caught lying and win the election.
 
"Foil, rather publicly"? In this case the government can´t even try to blame ETA, won´t be caught lying and win the election.

The worst that can be said of the Popular Party then was that they choose very poorly the intel and police commanders.

Today it has been published that Dezcallar (the CNI chief officer and a former socialist representative in the Mahgreb) confirmed twice to the Foreign Affairs Minister Ana Palacios that it had been ETA and that the info that was being filtered to the press concerning the van found was false.

Some police officers have been trialed for trying to destroy reports (rather weak) linking ETA with the attacks. Moreover all of the people trialed recently for the 11-M bombings were arrested by the Popular government.

The myth of the lies of the Popular Ministers is just that a myth.

By the way, do you know that the two first politicians to blame ETA were Juan José Ibarreche (the president of the Basque Autonomous Region) and José Luis Rodriguez (the Socialist Candidate and current president)?
 
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If I remember correctly the Spanish public sentiment was already against the government of the time, the election result is likely to still produce a change of government but probably not be such the landslide to the left that we ended up seeing, not that I really minded either way.
 

Goldstein

Banned
If I remember correctly the Spanish public sentiment was already against the government of the time, the election result is likely to still produce a change of government but probably not be such the landslide to the left that we ended up seeing, not that I really minded either way.

Yes, the government had faced a a lot of opposition because of its involvement in the war, but the polls still showed a PP victory before the Madrid bombings. The general "The government has lied us" feeling had a lot to do with the socialist victory, as Condottiero pointed out. I really think that aborting the Madrid bombings would lead the People's Party to a third term, and maybe to a socialist victory in the 2008 elections. So TTL Spain would be very similar to OTL Spain, except for the popular themes of conversation covering a different range of bullshit.
 
The myth of the lies of the Popular Ministers is just that a myth.

It is a fact that they insisted for a great many months in Congress about an alleged connection between ETA and the bombings, despite one of the cells quite publicly blowing themselves up at Leganes.

Hell, very recently Jimenez Losantos (think Spanish Sean Hannity) got severely fined for claiming that there was a pact of silence between the PSOE and certain centrist sectors of the PP not to investigate down to the last consequences.

At any rate, with the police stopping the attacks, the PP most likely wins, although maybe not with supermajority. If so, things get complicated, because they spent the last four years of Aznar's government harassing the Basque and Catalan nationalists. Probably means that they will have to sit down and negotiate every big law they try to pass, either with the Catalans or the PSOE.
 
It is a fact that they insisted for a great many months in Congress about an alleged connection between ETA and the bombings, despite one of the cells quite publicly blowing themselves up at Leganes.
Is it clear now who did it? I mean after the trial.
The main suspects were freed, there were only some spaniards that provided the explosives (that did not even match with what exploded in the trains), a few moroccan delinquents (that were not even islamists) and the ones that killed themselves in Leganes.
 
Is it clear now who did it? I mean after the trial.

Considering just how much the PP had invested in the idea that ETA was somehow involved in the attacks (going so far as to claim that a music CD recorded in the Basque country was a possible connection), if they had been able to bring something even remotely solid to the table you can bet that they would have made a lot more noise, sentence or no sentence.

Instead, even El Mundo has allowed things to quiet down. Yeah, I daresay that it is pretty damn clear at this point that the attack was Islamist with no Basque intervention.
 

Archibald

Banned
What has been forbidden because of the 11 march bombings is the fact that... ETA also tried to bomb madrid, to spoil the elections!

On 28th February 2004, the Guardia Civil stopped a truck with 600 kg of TNT on the road to Madrid.
Etarras planned to detonate it in Madrid.

This is not an atempt to find apologies to Rajoy and Aznar. But the fact is that, incredibly, ETA and Al Quaeda both mounted bombings on Madrid with the same objective, disrupt the elections. :eek:

But both terrorists groups didn't knew each others, and their planned attacks were differents (kamikaze+ explosives bags Vs car bombing)

Had the ETA team not been arrested, there would have been two distinct attacks in Madrid for the elections...
 
Considering just how much the PP had invested in the idea that ETA was somehow involved in the attacks (going so far as to claim that a music CD recorded in the Basque country was a possible connection), if they had been able to bring something even remotely solid to the table you can bet that they would have made a lot more noise, sentence or no sentence.

Instead, even El Mundo has allowed things to quiet down. Yeah, I daresay that it is pretty damn clear at this point that the attack was Islamist with no Basque intervention.

I repeat my question, given that there were no islamists condemned in the trials, that there was no connexion between the guilty ones and islamism and that it is not known who ordered the attacks, is it "pretty damn clear"?
 

boredatwork

Banned
To answer the OP.


The PP wins, PSOE comes in a close second. Based on March 10 polls, PP wins an absolute majority (barely) and Aznar retains power.

Aznar won't be relying upon regional/separatist parties to retain power, so there will be less accomodation of the catalan/basqe agendas. This will translate into a continued hard line on ETA (particularly after that groups aborted earlier attempt to sway the election) which will see more of that groups assets rolled up.
One might think that a lack of a de-facto Spanish surrender to Islamists would lead to continued efforts to score a high profile hit, but OTL doesn't actually show much evidence that the withdraw of troops from Iraq actually bought Spain any passes from the self-proclaimed jihadis. Nonetheless, no Madrid bombings means that the various incompetents and bumblers (such as those involved in the whole Leganes mess) who came to light in the investigation keep their positions - so something down the road is inevitable.


Outside of Spain, not much really changes

Aznar will not be attempting to buy his way back into Franco-German favor during the Consitutional negotiations - which will either result in stronger Spanish & Polish voting rights, or no agreed text at all. Doubt the final disposition of the text would differ, however.

The Spanish detachment in Iraq remains for another year or so beyond OTL. The anti-Iraq War movement loses one source of inertia/confirmation but retains others.

Efforts to reduce Dept of Agriculture controls on imports of some spanish foods (salted ham / pata negra in particular) continue to receive a mild push from the executive which they lost in OTL.

Chavez & Castro lose some 2004-2005 political cover, but the absence won't change their policies materially.
 

Goldstein

Banned
To answer the OP.


The PP wins, PSOE comes in a close second. Based on March 10 polls, PP wins an absolute majority (barely) and Aznar retains power.

Good analysis, except for that. Aznar was going to give up his charge anyway, so Mariano Rajoy, and not Aznar, would become the Spanish prime minister in 2004.
 
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