Spain's Constitutional Court confirmed a ban on hundreds of candidates of two Basque nationalist parties in the May 27 local elections just before campaigning began at midnight, media reported today. The Supreme Court had earlier banned all the 237 electoral lists of Abertzale Sozialistak (AS) and 133 lists - nearly a half - of Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) on the grounds that they were infiltrated by the illegal separatist party Batasuna, reported the dpa. The Constitutional Court rejected the parties' appeals against the ruling. It also backed Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government in its decision to seek a ban only on a part of the ANV lists, instead of all of them, as had been requested by the conservative opposition. A total ban would have been "disproportionate," the court said, but did not exclude outlawing ANV in the future. Batasuna took about 10 per cent of the Basque vote before it was banned in 2003 as the political wing of the armed separatist group ETA. -- SPA
