A two-week campaign kicked off today for regional elections in Spain's Basque country which look set to be a tight race between the Basque nationalists and the big "constitutional" Spanish parties.
On May 13 1.8 million voters are due to elect the 75 members of the Euskadi (Spanish Basque country) parliament. The largely autonomous Euskadi has been governed since 1980 by the moderate nationalists of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV).
The early elections called by outgoing lehendakari (Basque premier) Juan Jose Ibarretxe are to be held in the three Basque provinces of Alava (capital Vitoria), Guipuzcoa (San Sebastian) and Vizcaya (Bilbao), with 25 deputies being elected in each for a four-year term.
They were called after Ibarretxe's government was put in a minority last September with the departure from the parliament of the 14 deputies of the radical pro-independence coalition Euskal Herritarrok (EH, the political wing of the separatist movement ETA).
AFP