AS campaigning began yesterday for an election it seems set to lose, Spain's Socialist government reacted to mounting public outrage against Basque separatist rebels by announcing it might outlaw their political wing.
"I think there are legal grounds to act . . . even on the basis of collaboration with terrorism the Prime Minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, told state television late on Thursday.
He was speaking minutes before the start at midnight of the official campaign for elections on March 3rd which polls predict will deliver a conservative Popular Party (PP) government after 3 years of Socialist rule.
The government said it was asking prosecutors to file charges against individual leaders of Herri Batasuna, the political wing of the ETA rebel movement, for making a public apology for violence and association with an armed band.
But after a cabinet meeting yesterday, the government said it might go even further and outlaw the party altogether.
"We think there are two possible criminal offences . . . which could lead to the outlawing of Herri Batasuna," a government spokesman, Mr Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.
The announcements followed, Wednesday's murder by ETA of Francisco Tomas y Valiente, a widely respected law professor who served for six years as head of Spain's constitutional court.
The killing, the second in less than two weeks, sparked widespread public anger and thousands of students and citizens paused in silent protest on Thursday as the murdered professor was buried, with Mr Gonzalez and cabinet ministers in attendance.
State radio said evidence against them would include a videotape the group has been playing in Basque bars, clubs and schools in recent days and in which hooded, armed rebels plead their case.
Debate over whether ETA's political network should be outlawed began anew last week after the murder in the northern city of San Sebastian of Fernando Mugica, a prominent Socialist politician who was a friend of the prime minister.
ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) has killed some 800 people in a drive for independence launched in 1968.
The conservative Popular Party has warned foreign governments it expects a major upsurge in violence after what polls predict will be its victory in next month's election.