Madrid - A gunman shot and killed a regional politician yesterday in the Spanish city of Zaragoza, Jane Walker reports. Senator Manuel Gimenez Abad (52), president of the Popular Party of Aragon, was shot dead while walking with his son to a football match. Few people doubt the killing was the work of the Basque terrorist movement, ETA. Police say they found three 9 mm parabellum cartridges, the ammunition favoured by ETA, at the scene of the crime. His death brings to 30 the number of those killed since January last year, when ETA called off a 14-month ceasefire.
Next Sunday the Basque people vote for their regional parliament. For the first time in almost 20 years there is a possibility that an alliance between the constitutionalists of the Popular Party and the Basque Socialist Party could narrowly defeat the Basque Nationalist Party, which has governed the region for almost 20 years.