Excerpt:
In what is being viewed as a dress rehearsal for the general election in 2012, Spain's Socialist Party on May 22 suffered its worst defeat in municipal polls since Spain returned to democracy in 1978 after the death of the dictator General Francisco Franco. Amid mass anger at Spain's failing economy, the center-right opposition Popular Party won 37.5 percent of the municipal vote across the country, compared with 28 percent for the Socialist Party. The left-wing El País newspaper described the defeat as "a tsunami drowning the Socialists."