Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Monday that he may seek the support of several political parties for his new government after falling short of an absolute majority in Sunday's elections, according to dpa. It was too early to discuss stable alliances or temporary agreements, Zapatero said on commenting the election results, but pledged to maintain a dialogue with all the political forces including the conservative opposition. The Socialists were expected to seek alliances with some of the regionalist and leftist parties that backed them during the previous legislature. Zapatero said the election results gave his party a "sufficient majority" to take forward its programme, which would focus on supporting the slowing economy, on boosting employment and on social policy. Foreign policy would seek to increase Europe's relevance in the world, Zapatero said, pledging to relaunch Spain's "European engagement." The Socialists took 44 per cent of the vote and 169 seats in the 350-strong parliament, up from 164 seats in 2004. The opposition conservative People's Party (PP) reaped 40 per cent and 153 seats, up from 148 seats four years ago. The PP's result remained short of what the party had hoped for, and cast uncertainty over the future of party leader Mariano Rajoy, whose confrontational tactics and lacklustre style had been criticized during the campaign. The biggest losers, however, were the small parties, among which the Catalan separatist party ERC and the far-left Izquierda Unida will no longer have their own parliamentary groups after only taking 3 and 2 seats respectively. The best smaller performers were the Catalan regionalist formation CiU, with 11 seats, and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) with 6 seats.
