SPAIN'S election campaign ended brutally yesterday when a former councillor was shot dead on the doorstep of his house in Mondragon, a small town in the Basque region of northern Spain.
The killing of Isaias Carrasco, 42, of the ruling Socialist Party, in front of his wife and younger daughter was blamed on the Basque separatist group Eta.
The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and the opposition leader, M
ariano Rajoy, agreed to suspend all remaining campaign activity ahead of the election, due to be held tomorrow.
Mr Carrasco, a father of three, was shot on the doorstep of his home around 1:30pm. He died later in hospital.
An eyewitness said: "I was in my room and I heard three shots. I looked out the window and saw his wife and daughter on top of the body, screaming 'murderers, murderers'."
At the beginning of the campaign, Spain's interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, had said: "We believe Eta will try and kill before the elections and our obligation is to avoid this by all means."
The group's last fatal attack came in December in Cap Breton, France, when gunmen shot dead two plainclothes policemen they appeared to have met by chance.
Since then, France and Spain have created a joint anti-terrorism unit which allows Spanish police to carry guns in France.
However, the election campaign had been dominated by economic issues and the fear of recession. The latest polls suggest Mr Zapatero will win by a slim majority, with Basque and Catalan parties potentially holding the balance of power.
Four years ago Mr Zapatero scored a surprise win over Mr Rajoy, in a poll just days after the Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people.
The election winner will have to deal with a vow by the Basque premier, Juan José Ibarretxe, to hold a referendum over the political future of the Basque country. During the election campaign, the conservative Partido Popular attacked the Spanish government for holding talks with Eta.
The group's previous ceasefire ended on New Year's Eve, 2006 when a bomb destroyed a car park at Madrid airport, killing two people.
Tension has grown in the Basque region after a major police crackdown and the banning of several pro-independence parties.
About 30 leaders of the outlawed Batasuna party and other Basque groups have been jailed in recent weeks over their alleged collusion with Eta. The arrests, together with the judicial clampdown, sparked several nights of rioting in Basque cities.
