Spain's opposition party maintains lead in polls ahead of election

The recent announcement that Basque separatist group ETA has definitively ended its campaign of violence has helped to boost the esteem of the governing Socialist Party, but has done nothing to cut the lead in the polls held by the opposition Popular Party (PP), ahead of Nov.20 general election, according to opinion surveys on Sunday. With the election campaign due to officially start this week, opinion poll in the 'El Pais' newspaper shows the Socialist (PSOE) trailing the PP by 15 percent in the voting intention of the Spanish public. The Metroscopia study for the paper gives the PP 45.3 percent of the potential vote, with the PSOE polling just 30.3 percent of the votes. The numbers have hardly changed since the last poll, which was published a week ago, just three days after ETA had announced its definitive ceasefire, although the PSOE have closed the gap by 0.6 percent. PSOE candidate Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba's profile has improved as a result of the ETA's decision to end violence, with his approval rating among prospective PSOE voters rising from 33 to 56 percent. Meanwhile 42 percent of all voters consider him better placed to manage the end of ETA, while just 24 percent of Spaniards have confidence that PP candidate Mariano Rajoy can carry out the task effectively. The left wing Izquierda Unida currently stands at six percent in voting intentions, while the center-right UPy D, which is led by former socialist minister Rosa Diez, currently stands on 4.2 percent, although Diez has the highest approval rating of all of the election candidates. The bad news for the PSOE is that although the poll is published on Sunday, the questions were carried out in the middle of the week, before the publication of the latest unemployment figures which show that almost 5 million Spaniards are out of work.