The Spanish general election campaign has concluded early after a former politician from the ruling Socialist Party was shot and killed.
The attack, which took place in the northern Basque region, was blamed on the separatist group ETA.
Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, tipped to win a second mandate in Sunday's vote, immediately accused ETA of seeking to upset the electoral process.
He said: 'The terrorists wanted to interfere today in the peaceful manifestation of the will of the people at the ballot box.
'But Spanish democracy has demonstrated that it does not allow challenges from those who oppose its basic principles and its most essential values.'
Mr Zapatero came to power in a surprise election win in March 2004 amid the shock of train bombings in Madrid by Islamic extremists that killed 191 people just three days earlier.
Isaias Carrasco, a former town councillor and member of the Socialist Party, was shot in the Basque town of Mondragon at around 12.30pm this afternoon and died shortly afterwards.
Witnesses quoted by Spanish media said he was shot several times at close range in front of his wife and daughter outside his home.
The shooting came two weeks after the government raised its terror alert level to maximum, fearing an ETA attack to coincide with the election.
