Spain's ruling Socialists reeled on Monday from stinging losses in local elections, and now face a balancing act between voter anger over sky-high unemployment and investor demands for strict austerity measures. A week of protests by Spaniards fed up with the stagnant economy and the EU's highest jobless rate preceded Sunday's elections, which left the Socialists out of power in most of the country's cities and almost all the 17 autonomous regions.
Pressure could now grow from inside and outside the Socialist party for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to call early elections, though he vowed on Sunday night to hang on to the end of his term in March next year.
While the outcome of local elections does not always forecast general elections, the centre-right opposition Popular Party will try to turn Sunday's momentum into a victory at the national level.
"This is a beautiful day for our party. We've won the best result in our party's history in municipal and regional elections," Mariano Rajoy, who will be the PP candidate in the next general elections, told cheering supporters.
The PP grabbed several traditional Socialist strongholds for themselves, including the city of Seville and the Castilla-La Mancha region, both plagued with especially high unemployment.
In the aggregated municipal vote nationwide the PP had a 10-percentage point lead over the Socialists, who have not lost so badly in municipal elections since democracy returned to Spain in 1978 after the Franco dictatorship.
Spaniards had been patient during four years of economic trouble, but this wore out in the run-up to the elections when tens of thousands of mostly young protesters took to the streets in cities around the country.