Spain's New Prime Minister: 'I Want Kerry to Win'

Socialist leader Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero, who won an upset election victory over Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on Sunday on a platform of withdrawing Spain's troops from Iraq, has endorsed Sen. John Kerry in the upcoming presidential election.

"I think Kerry will win. I want Kerry to win," Zapatero told Britain's Guardian newspaper, just four days before he swept to victory riding a wave of anti-U.S. feeling sparked by the al Qaeda train bombings in Madrid.

Two days earlier Zapatero had blasted Aznar's alliance with the U.S., calling the Bush administration "the most reactionary American administration in recent times."

"We're aligning ourselves with Kerry," Zapatero proclaimed to the International Herald Tribune. "Our alliance will be for peace, against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the government of Spain and the new Kerry administration."

Editor's note: