Spain's main political parties cancelled closing campaign rallies on Friday, two days before an election, after a former councilor from the governing Socialist Party was shot dead in the Basque Country.

The government blamed ETA separatists for the killing of Isaias Carrasco, who was shot five times in front of his wife and young daughter outside his house in the town of Mondragon.

Whether Carrasco's murder would have any effect on the outcome of Sunday's election, in which the Socialists are favorites, was unclear.

In 2004, Socialist Party leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became prime minister with a surprise election victory three days after an attack who killed 191 people by bombing Madrid trains.

The Socialist Party and the opposition Popular Party cancelled rallies scheduled for Friday, the last day campaigning was allowed, and both Zapatero and PP leader Mariano Rajoy traveled to Mondragon to pay their respects to the dead man's family.

Zapatero spent an hour with the family and local party members before emerging to talk to reporters.

"The conviction of democrats is much stronger than our pain and all democrats together will achieve the end of violence," he said. "There will be justice, they will be caught, they will pay and they will go to jail. That is their only destiny."

Rajoy also condemned the killing and ETA.

ETA "can abandon all hope of achieving its political objectives because no one will negotiate with them and it has no chance of winning its battle against 45 million decent and honorable people."

The prime minister had been told of the killing while waving to followers at a campaign rally in the Andalusian city of Malaga. Television images showed him turn stony-faced after a senior official spoke in his ear.

Zapatero broke off peace talks with ETA in December 2006 after they killed two people with a car bomb. His Socialist party leads the conservative Popular Party in opinion polls.

He has led a crackdown on ETA, but the Popular Party has accused him of being soft on the Basque separatists in the past.

"This is a day of mourning. We should all stand by the family of Isaias Carrasco and remain united, united against ETA," said Popular Party candidate Mariano Rajoy.

Higher turnout?

Julian Santamaria, a politics professor at Madrid's Complutense University, did not think the killing would alter voting intentions.

"It might mean more people get out and vote on Sunday," he told Reuters.

Leftist voters are historically more prone to abstention than conservatives, and Zapatero's surprise victory in 2004 was due partly to an unusually high turnout by young voters angered by the then PP government's blaming the train bombings on ETA.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades in its fight for independence of the Basque Country in northern Spain and southern France, even though polls show most Basques do not want this.

PHOTO CAPTION

Basque police look at blood stains as they collect evidence outside the house of a Isaias Carrasco after an attack in Mondragon, northern Spain, March 7, 2008.

Reuters