WORLD BRIEFING / SPAIN
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Basque Socialist leader Patxi Lopez was voted in as the Basque region’s first non-nationalist president and vowed to wage a relentless fight against the armed separatist group ETA.
Lopez won 39 votes in the 75-seat regional parliament against 35 for outgoing President Juan Jose Ibarretxe of the Basque Nationalist Party. There was one abstention.
The vote ended nearly 30 years of rule by Ibarretxe’s party, which governed on a platform that flirted with independence for the wealthy but troubled region.
Addressing the chamber before the vote, Lopez said he wanted to unite Basque society, which he described as divided between those who want independence from Spain and those who prefer continuing to be part of it.
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