Poll says Spain's Socialists would win vote with Rubalcaba as leader

EITB

Spain's ruling Socialists could win an election with a lead of 6.5 points if their popular Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba was leader, a poll published on Sunday showed.

The survey in left-leaning newspaper El Pais showed 37.1 percent of Spaniards would vote for the Socialists if elections were held tomorrow and Rubalcaba was party leader, while 30.6 percent would vote for the opposition Popular Party (PP).

That compares to a 6 percentage point lead for the PP if the Socialists maintain their line up.

Rubalcaba's promotion to deputy PM in November was seen as an attempt by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to halt the drop in support the Socialists have seen since Spain slumped into financial crisis in 2008.

But the gap between support for the party under Zapatero and the opposition has trended wider since the government brought in unpopular austerity measures to convince financial markets that the public deficit is under control.

The political cost is expected to continue with Spain's impending reform of its pension system, leading to talk Zapatero might not stand as the candidate for his party in the next parliamentary election due by May 2012.

Rubalcaba, who is also interior minister, is considered the most likely candidate to replace Zapatero as head of the party. The poll showed he enjoys the highest rating of any minister or political party leader.

The poll was compiled from telephone interviews of 1,023 voters with a margin of error of 3.1 percent, El Pais said.