THE MURDER of a senior jurist in Madrid on Wednesday has plunged the entire Spanish political establishment into shock and outrage. Francisco Tomas y Valiente, former president of the Spanish Constitutional Court, was shot dead in his college office.
According to witnesses and the police, the killer was a prominent member of the Basque separatist group ETA, operating unmasked although his face is well known from `wanted' posters recently distributed in the city.
The killing came just as the political parties were preparing to launch their official campaigns for crucial general elections, due to take place on March 3rd. It is the second such blow in recent days last week, the brother of a leading member of the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) was shot in the Basque city of San Sebastian.
The long ruling PSOE president, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, was a personal friend of both men, and attended both funerals. So did the leader of the right wing opposition Partido Popular (PP), who according to opinion polls, is likely to oust him as president in March which would be the first democratic transfer of power from left to right in Spain since the 1930s.
Tomas y Valiente, while personally close to the Socialist leadership, had been noted for his independence in taking highly sensitive decisions regarding the constitutionality of their legislation.
Ironically, the new ETA campaign may boost Mr Gonzalez's slim chances of re election. His administration is beleaguered by serious scandals, the worst of which concerns the setting up of illegal death squads (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberaction or GAL) to combat ETA in the 1980s.
The wave of repugnance for ETA expressed across Spain yesterday in widespread demonstrations, may actually result in sympathy and badly needed votes for those who, albeit outside the law, took a hard line against the Basque radicals in the past.