Gonzalez, Wife Shoo-Ins in Spain Voting

At the rostrum, an earnestly bearded candidate is in full cry, but all seven photographers in the homey auditorium with butterscotch walls ignore him, focusing instead on a smiling schoolmarm in the first row.

When her turn comes to promise Socialist elixir to quench Spanish political thirst, the graying, blue-collar crowd of 400 rises in welcome.

“We Socialists have the spirit to win this election, and many after it,” said companera Carmen Romero, pledging a better deal for all Spaniards, but particularly the disadvantaged--the old, the poor, the women. “Schools, social centers, health care, the equality of opportunity--we are opening the way,” she said to rhythmic applause.

In elections today, the 42-year-old Romero, a teacher-turned-First Lady, is a shoo-in for a seat in Spain’s Parliament from this sherry-bulls-and-cork region of Andalusia.

As virtually certain is the national choice of her husband, Felipe Gonzalez, to be Spain’s prime minister for a third term.

Indeed, unless all the polls are wrong, the question is not so much if Gonzalez and his Socialists will win today, but by how much: Will they retain an absolute majority in the 350-seat Parliament or need to add a few votes in giant-pygmy coalition with some regional party?

Gonzalez and Romero, who by Spanish tradition uses her maiden name, are disparate symbols of breathtaking change in a young democracy.

So routine are free elections now in a country that lived for more than three decades under dictator Francisco Franco that as many as a third of Spain’s 29.5 million registered voters may not bother to go to the polls today.

Gonzalez, a graying 47 whose socialism has become nominal after seven years in power, is running on a record of solid achievement. Rushing to catch up, once backward Spain is growing faster economically than all of its partners in the European Community.

Despite 16% unemployment that is West Europe’s highest, growth will be a solid 5% again this year in a country that has gained 1.2 million jobs--and nearly 3 million cars--since it joined the community in 1986.

Gonzalez, who polished his statesman’s image during the campaign with an official visit to President Bush in Washington and as host to French President Francois Mitterrand, has long since scrapped his early leftist rhetoric and policies.

Under Gonzalez, Spain has become increasingly active in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and an outspoken advocate of the European Community, which is spending billions to help on badly needed infrastructural improvements. Amid all the development, Spanish phones whistle, Spanish trains sigh, and potholed national highways are decades out of date.

Amid all the change, Romero’s candidacy is a microcosm of social restructuring undreamed in Franco’s day. Tourists here in Andalusia can still buy tiles painted with the inscription “Women and sardines to the kitchen,” but the stereotyped Spanish woman, smothered in black, beads clicking, is history.

For this election, the announced goal of the ruling Socialist Workers’ Party was to have women candidates for one quarter of Parliament’s seats. “There is a change of mentality. Women are incorporating themselves in political life, in jobs and skills that have been traditionally closed to them,” said candidate Romero, a mother of three who grew restive as a Moncloa Palace decoration.

By most counts, the Socialists will win around 40% of the vote today, and 170-180 seats in Parliament, down slightly from their 44% and 184-seat showing in Gonzalez’ 1986 victory.

Second place will again fall to the conservative Popular Party, which, under Jose Maria Aznar, a 36-year-old regional politician from Valladolid making his national debut. Campaigning for privatization of state industry, reduced government spending and lower taxes, the conservatives may not keep all of the 105 seats that they won last time.

Aznar assumed the party leadership from Franco-linked founder Manuel Fraga less than two months before Gonzalez called the elections--eight months early to take advantage of opposition disarray. “I did as much as I could,” said Aznar as campaigning ended for a “day of reflection” Saturday.

Centrists under former prime minister Adolfo Suarez, 58, are unlikely to improve today on their 28 seats in the outgoing Parliament despite a call for the abolition of obligatory military service that appeals to young voters.

The United Left, under Julio Anguila, a 48-year-old Communist and former mayor of Cordoba, by contrast, is expected to at least double its seven seats, thanks largely to disaffection among members of Socialist unions who believe that Gonzalez has sold out to unchecked capitalism.