SPAIN: The leaders of the Socialist Party of Galicia (PSdeG), Emilio Pérez Touriño, and of the Bloque National Gallego (BNG), Anxo Quintana, announced last night that they would form a coalition government in the region. This brings to an end 24 years of unbroken right-wing rule in the area.
Their announcement came after a nine-day cliffhanger since elections on June 19th.
Over the last two days, Galician officials have verified and counted late votes from emigrants, which the conservative Partido Popular (PP) vainly hoped would swing the single seat they needed to retain their absolute majority.
This result marks the continued success of the Socialist Party prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has now led his party in five successive elections at municipal, regional and national level. In all of these, the Socialist Party (known as the PSOE in most parts of Spain) has significantly improved its performance, and the conservative Partido Popular (PP) has declined.
This victory is particularly significant in view of the recent massive street demonstrations, led by the PP, against Mr Zapatero's new departures on issues ranging from gay marriage to talking to Eta.
The elections also mark the exit from power of one of Spain's most colourful and controversial politicians, Manuel Fraga (82).
However, this old fox of the Spanish right insists that he will now take up a new role as leader of the opposition. He won 37 seats, down four on his last outing.
The PSdeG won 25 seats, a gain of eight, while its new coalition partners in the left-nationalist BNG took 13.
As a tourism minister in the Franco dictatorship, Mr Fraga endorsed the slogan "Spain is different".
As interior minister during the subsequent transition to democracy, he showed just how different Spain could be - he presided over a police massacre of peacefully demonstrating workers outside a church in Vitoria in 1976.
He failed in his attempts to guide a conservative party to power in Madrid in the years that followed, resigning from the leadership of the PP's precursor, Alianza Popular, in 1986.
Thereafter, he withdrew to his own home fiefdom of Galicia, the north-western corner of Spain, where he won four absolute majorities.
The region has a strong sense of identity - the Spanish constitution recognises it, along with the Basque Country and Catalonia as a "nationality".