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José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero became Prime Minister of Spain after winning his first General Election.

The campaign for the General Election started a fortnight before March 14, 2004. The opinion polls were favorable to the People's Party, which could even repeat its absolute majority according to some of them.

One of the most important friction points was the absence of televised debates between the candidates. Zapatero was the first to propose a debate to Mariano Rajoy, the new leader of the People's Party after Aznar's voluntary retirement. Rajoy accepted on the condition that Zapatero could not be alone but accompanied at least by two of his potential allies after the election: Gaspar Llamazares (the leader of United Left a Spanish Communist Party) and Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira (leader of Republican Left of Catalonia, a pro-Independence Catalan party very unpopular outside Catalonia). Rajoy justified his decision on the grounds that, in his opinion, he was not running against the Socialist Party but against a "coalition" of forces opposed to the People's Party policies. Zapatero never formally answered this proposal and continued criticizing throughout the campaign what he always defined as Mr. Rajoy's reluctance to defend face-to-face his political program. (Zapatero has promised to change electoral law to make televised debates compulsory.)

On Thursday March 11, 2004 the most terrible terrorist attacks ever in Spanish history took place. Several commuters' trains were bombed causing 191 deaths and a terrible outrage all over Spain. The attacks took place three days before the General Election and all electoral activities were suspended. The common sorrow instead of promoting unity among Spaniards increased the already bitter tone of the campaign .

Everybody, including the People's Party government and Zapatero (who accused ETA in a radio statement broadcast at 8:50 a.m.), initially claimed the attacks to be the work of the Basque terrorist organization ETA. Later, after an audiotape in Arab was found in a van near a Railway Station where the terrorists boarded one of the trains, Aznar declared that all of the possibilities were being investigated . The government was accused of manipulating the existing information about the real authorship of the attacks to avoid the consequences of public anger at a bombing "caused" by its foreign policy.

Zapatero himself has repeatedly accused the Popular Party of lying about who were those responsible for the attacks. On the other hand, Zapatero has been accused of telling the Spanish media that suicidal bombers had been found among the victims in the hours following the blasts (although all the specialists that examined the bodies said they found no evidence pointing to that) . When he was asked in December 2004 about the issue by the Parliamentary Investigative Committee created to find the truth about the attacks he declared that he did not "remember" what he had said.

After the demonstrations that took place in front of the People's Party premises all over Spain on March 13 2004 (the reflection day when, according to the law, demonstrations are forbidden), Zapatero won the election on March 14, 2004. The PSOE won 164 seats in the Cortes, and the People's Party obtained 148. It seems likely that the election result was influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the Spanish public's response to the attacks and the informative coverage by the different media and political parties.

The crowd gathered to celebrate the victory in front of the Socialist Headquarters cried to Zapatero: "Don't fail us!" (probably remembering the dissapointment caused by the former Socialist government in its last years).

An important point of controversy is if the attacks intended to change the electoral result or not. This has been called by the ex-Prime Minister José María Aznar, among others, the "March 4 theory" (that is, if the election had been scheduled for March 7, the attacks would have taken place on March 4). No definitive data exists in favor of that possibility but some facts have been used to support it. Thus, the first question Jamal Zougam (one of the first arrested suspects) made when he arrived at the Courthouse on Monday March 15, 2004 was: 'Who won the election?' .  Administrator note

All of these controversies put a blemish on Zapatero's victory, as the shadow of what had happened the three previous days did not allow the Socialist Party to fully enjoy its triumph. The electoral result was considered by some foreign media, especially in the US, an example of weakness that would encourage further terrorist attacks as Zapatero had opposed Bush's policy in the Middle East and had promised to withdraw the Spanish troops from Iraq. Left-wingers, among others, dismissed this point of view as absurd as the Spanish people have lived in defiance of ETA for decades and Zapatero himself has firmly condemned terrorism.

On June 13, 2004 (three months after the General Election) the Election for the European Parliament took place. The Socialist Party won again with 25 seats against 24 for the People's Party (out of 54). Although José Borrell was the official candidate, Zapatero played an important role in that campaign (as it is usual in Spain).

Notes

1. Template:Anb According to a poll published a year after the attacks by the Madrid newspaper El Mundo, 70% of the Spaniards believed that the attacks contributed decisively to the Socialist victory.