Socialist Zapatero seeks new term in Spanish vote

By Elisabeth O'Leary

MADRID (Reuters) - Voting in Spain's election tailed off slightly late on Sunday but numbers were still high enough to suggest the Socialists of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will return to power, albeit short of an absolute majority.

While campaigning has centred on a slowing economy, the murder of a former town councillor on Friday, blamed by all the parties on Basque separatists ETA, has reminded voters of deep divisions over the status of Spain's regions.

Commentators expected the shooting to boost turnout as Spaniards defy attempts to scare them out of exercising their democratic rights. Dry weather across most of the country also looked likely to encourage voting.

A high turnout -- of 75 percent or more -- tends to benefit the left, whose voters are ordinarily more apathetic.

At 1730 GMT, with one and a half hours of voting left in most of the country, 61.0 percent of the electorate had voted, compared to 63.0 percent at the same time in 2004, when voters were galvanised by the bombings of Madrid commuter trains three days earlier.

"Terrorists are looking to pervert the normal course of affairs in our open society through destruction and death," said an editorial in the conservative newspaper La Vanguardia.

"We can only obstinately maintain our resolve ... so that votes defeat guns."