than keen on membership of the military alliance around 40 percent voted against joining). Close relations with the USA have always been a risky option for Spanish governments
So this still leaves important questions unanswered: why is international influence through the USA such an important issue for Aznar? Surely electoral support in Spain, and trade with EU partners, are more important?
Some, such as The Economist, suggest that the PP is trying to reassert Spain as an imperialist power on the international stage - a role that it lost at the end of the 19th century.
Others, such as the radical Espacio Alternativo current in IU, have pointed to the very considerable role that Spanish big business (the keystone of PP support) now plays in Latin America - an area where the USA has far more influence than the EU. Investments over the past decade mean that 30 percent of the profits on the Madrid Stock Exchange now come from these
sources.
By comparison, Spain's income from EU subsidies is now relatively unimportant. So it could be in the interests of Spanish big business to side with the US Federal Reserve rather than the European Central Bank. Developments on the Spanish Left However, Aznar's major problem in the coming local elections is that the radical right-wing image that he now presents is not the platform on which he with the USA have always been a risky option for Spanish governments. the PSOE, led by Jose Luis Zapatero. Though they have not provided a particularly inspiring leadership for anti-war activists in the last few weeks, they have edged ahead of the PP in the polls for the first time in some years. The United Left may pick up some support, but they have been encouraging unity around Zapatero as a focus for the opposition.
The question for the far left is whether they can maintain the unprecedented mass movement that has been built up against the war, and whether the United Left can avoid being swamped by the Socialists and assert its own political profile.
After seven years of right-wing, antiunion government, the mobilisations against the war have opened up new opportunities for the Spanish left: a chance both to replace the PP in government in the 2004 elections, and also opportunities to rebuild the United Left after some years of decline - perhaps with a more solid political base than it had before
While previously it relied overwhelmingy on the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), the independent forces in the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements could now provide an opportunity for building up a more plural, dynamic left-wing alliance.
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16 80 ce May 2003