<p>Spaniards battling a deep recession voted on Sunday in two snap regional elections that could deal a blow to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Rajoy’s right-leaning Popular Party has imposed tough austerity measures on the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy and now faces votes in the premier’s home region of Galicia and in the Basque Country.<br /><br />The elections are full of risks for the Spanish leader as he agonises over whether and when to snatch a eurozone rescue line to help finance the nation’s soaring public debt.<br />Many investors believe the prime minister is waiting to get the two votes out of the way before requesting a rescue, keeping world financial markets on edge. In Galicia, which has 2.7 million eligible voters including 400,000 abroad, the Popular Party was defending a tight, absolute majority. Opinion polls gave it hopes of keeping power.<br /><br />But Rajoy risks a humiliating upset if his prescription of deep spending cuts and higher taxes causes voters in Galicia, where the unemployment rate is 21 percent, to punish his party.<br /><br />Economic pain and cuts in education and health are fuelling discontent across the country’s 17 powerful regions.<br /><br />In the rain-swept Basque Country, a pro-independence coalition is expected to enjoy a surge in support in the first regional vote since the armed separatist movement ETA renounced the use of bombs and guns.<br /><br />One voter, 43-year-old engineer Inaki Arteaga, said both the economy and the new climate in the Basque Country weighed on his mind.<br /><br />“These elections have two keys: the economy and the fact that this time anyone who wants to can vote,” he said.<br /><br />Rajoy, already struggling to contain pro-independence demands in northeastern Catalonia, which goes to the polls on November 25, has urged Spaniards to stay united.<br />The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), a conservative nationalist party, was ahead in opinion polls before the Basque vote, in which nearly 1.8 million people are eligible to cast ballots. But a new coalition of left-wing Basque separatists, Euskal Herria Bildu, is likely to come second. <br /></p>
<p>Spaniards battling a deep recession voted on Sunday in two snap regional elections that could deal a blow to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Rajoy’s right-leaning Popular Party has imposed tough austerity measures on the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy and now faces votes in the premier’s home region of Galicia and in the Basque Country.<br /><br />The elections are full of risks for the Spanish leader as he agonises over whether and when to snatch a eurozone rescue line to help finance the nation’s soaring public debt.<br />Many investors believe the prime minister is waiting to get the two votes out of the way before requesting a rescue, keeping world financial markets on edge. In Galicia, which has 2.7 million eligible voters including 400,000 abroad, the Popular Party was defending a tight, absolute majority. Opinion polls gave it hopes of keeping power.<br /><br />But Rajoy risks a humiliating upset if his prescription of deep spending cuts and higher taxes causes voters in Galicia, where the unemployment rate is 21 percent, to punish his party.<br /><br />Economic pain and cuts in education and health are fuelling discontent across the country’s 17 powerful regions.<br /><br />In the rain-swept Basque Country, a pro-independence coalition is expected to enjoy a surge in support in the first regional vote since the armed separatist movement ETA renounced the use of bombs and guns.<br /><br />One voter, 43-year-old engineer Inaki Arteaga, said both the economy and the new climate in the Basque Country weighed on his mind.<br /><br />“These elections have two keys: the economy and the fact that this time anyone who wants to can vote,” he said.<br /><br />Rajoy, already struggling to contain pro-independence demands in northeastern Catalonia, which goes to the polls on November 25, has urged Spaniards to stay united.<br />The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), a conservative nationalist party, was ahead in opinion polls before the Basque vote, in which nearly 1.8 million people are eligible to cast ballots. But a new coalition of left-wing Basque separatists, Euskal Herria Bildu, is likely to come second. <br /></p>