MATAS OPEN FOR TALKS

Staff Reporter THE results of the Sunday's general elections, with the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) emerging triumphant in central government, have drawn similar responses from the two leading politicians in the Balearic Islands. Both Jaume Matas, current regional leader and chairman of the centre-right Popular Party; and Francesc Antich, top Socialist Workers Party candidate in the Balearics for a seat in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid, agreed yesterday on continued cooperation between regional and central government, the latter to be presided over by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Matas, who personally congratulated Antich when the electoral results became known, made an open offer to central government. Matas said his willingness would be based on “institutional collaboration” where the benefit of the Islands might be at stake and attributed “the dramatic turnaround” in the outcome of the voting to the “traumatic situation” generated by the atrocities in Madrid last week when 200 people died as the result of terrorist bombings. Matas, leader of the Popular Party in the Islands, highlighted the fact that his party “is the most significant driving force” in the Balearics. Although his party had obtained the same number of deputies as the Socialists (four), they were ahead of the Socialists by 6.35 percent in the number of votes and had secured four of the five seats in the Senate which were available to the Balearics, four (2 on Majorca, 1 on Minorca and 1 for the Islands of Ibiza and Formentera). Only one on Majorca had been won by the Socialists under Antich. Matas declared “let no one have any doubts” on the cooperative attitude that his party would adopt if “the benefit of” the citizens of the Islands were to be at stake. He gave assurances that the Partido Popular in the Balearics would maintain respect for the incoming central government, from which Matas sought assurances that they will maintain the investments in the Balearics to which the former government of José María Aznar had been committed. The Socialist deputy elect in the Balearics, Francesc Antich, declared that those currently leading the Partido Popular in the region “will not have the door shut in their face” by the future central Socialist government. Antich urged Matas's party to “build a mutually beneficial understanding” with the new “powers that be” under Zapatero. Nevertheless, on the financing of the controversial roadways developments in the Islands, Antich commented: “I don't think it would be logical if State aid for the construction of major roadways, such as that between Inca and Manacor, didn't comply with key environmental criteria” With regard to his possible election as a minister in the next Cabinet presided over by José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, Antich affirmed that Zapatero is the only one who can dictate how his government is going to be formed. Antich asserted that the new front bench was going to be “formidable” and ”extraordinary”. Leaders of the two main parties in the Balearics believed that the high participation in the voting turnout was a civic response to the terrorist attacks on Thursday last week in Madrid and they paid respect to the victims of the atrocity and their families. The Progressive party candidate for the Balearic Islands, Nanda Ramon, was disappointed that the forecasts of the polls hadn't been fulfilled in terms of destroying the absolute majority of the Partido Popular, since this had been one of the “explicit” objectives of the candidature. The “number one” of the coalition made up of the Majorcan Socialist Party (PSM), the United Left (EU), the Green Party (EV) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) was convinced that the coalition had suffered as a result of the polarisation of the vote between the Popular Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), a situation which in their judgement had been heightened by the terrorist atrocities in Madrid.