New Delhi: Nationalists have won the most votes in regional elections in Basque Country. Final results showed that the Basque Nationalist Party won 30 seats in the 75-seat parliament and the Socialists took 24.
The results mean that the Nationalists, who have governed the Basque for 29 years, could be ousted from power by a coalition of non-nationalist parties. Election day saw attacks on a court and several banks in the town of Amorebieta. The region has a troubled history.
A campaign by militant group ETA over 40 years to carve out an independent Basque homeland has killed more than 800 people. The elections are Spain's first political tests since the country slid into recession.
The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) is in close race with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist Party for control of the region. The PNV has governed the region since 1980.
A bomb exploded in Madrid last month after the Supreme Court banned two parties from running in Sunday's polls for links to the militant group ETA. An armed campaign by ETA over 40 years to carve out an independent Basque homeland has killed more than 800 people.
In the north-western Galicia region, Spain's nationally-governing Socialists lost power to conservative opposition.
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