Voters in Spain Elect Gonzalez to Third Term : Politics: The prime minister’s Socialist Party keeps its majority rule in Parliament by one seat.

Pragmatic Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez was elected to a third term Sunday in a national parliamentary vote that proved both a runaway and a cliffhanger.

The Socialist victory in the multi-party race was clear in results of exit polls broadcast within minutes after voting ended Sunday evening. Then came hours of waiting to see if Gonzalez had been able to preserve a majority that had been eight seats after the last elections in 1986.

He did--barely. The crucial 176th Socialist seat in the 350-seat Parliament did not fall to Gonzalez until the last trickle of votes were counted around 4 this morning. By then, Spanish newspapers had gone to press, national radio and television were off the air, and most Spaniards had long since gone to bed.

Socialists who have ruled Spain since Gonzalez’s first victory in 1982 see the new four-year term he won Sunday as the stuff of history.

In 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World, Spain is to host the Summer Olympics in Barcelona and history’s biggest world’s fair in Seville--and to become fully integrated into a frontier-free Europe.

In the short run, reelection for the 47-year-old Gonzalez likely presages modest austerity measures to cool Spain’s overheating economy, probably by restricting consumer credit.

As part of the Socialist triumph, there came victory as well Sunday for Carmen Romero, Gonzalez’s schoolteacher wife, who won a parliamentary seat from the southern port city of Cadiz in her political debut.

Results Sunday that closely paralleled those of the 1986 election brought solace in defeat to the new leaders of conservatives on Gonzalez’s right, and Communists to his left.

The conservatives maintained their position as the leading opposition force, and the Communists doubled their standing in the Cortes, as Spain’s Parliament is known.

About 70% of Spain’s 29.5 million registered voters went to the polls on a bright, sunny autumn day in an election scored by a proportional system of representation.

At 4 a.m. today, with 100% of the votes officially counted, Gonzalez’s Socialist Workers’ Party had 39.55% of the vote and 176 seats. In 1986, the Socialists won 44% and 184 seats.

Once again, the conservative Popular Party ran second, winning 25.83% of the vote and 106 seats. In 1986, the conservatives won 105 seats. In Catalonia, a conservative regional party retained its 18 seats in the national Parliament.

The Communist-led United Left vaulted from seven seats in 1986 to 17 this time, winning 9.05% of the vote, the official returns from the Interior Ministry showed.

Centrists headed by former Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez who held 19 seats in the outgoing Parliament slumped to 14 seats Sunday with 7.94% of the vote.

Sunday’s elections unfolded without incident in a democratic nation whose politics have matured centuries in the 14 years since the death of long-ruling caudillo Francisco Franco.

“The people have spoken. They are satisfied with our programs and our performance,” said Eduardo Martin Toval, leader of Socialist members of Parliament.

Under a socialism that has become increasingly rhetorical and free-market since his first election in 1982, Gonzalez now presides over a rapidly modernizing nation that boasts the fastest growing economy in Europe.

Unemployment is also the highest in the European Community, though, and Spain’s public services and infrastructure lag behind European standards.

Health, housing, education and benefits for pensioners all clamor for government funds at a time when 7% inflation and growing trade and budget deficits force Gonzalez to look for cost-cutting measures. “Vote Now, Pay Later,” sneered one conservative newspaper in predicting that higher taxes would follow a victory by Gonzalez.

The Gonzalez government has refused to negotiate with Socialist unions who say he has betrayed them amid Spain’s emerging prosperity.

Workers’ wages have not kept pace with rising living costs, losing support for Gonzalez among former friends in organized labor. Union discontent with Gonzalez helped the Communists.

“The results confirm that we are on the way up, above all thanks to young voters and old supporters of the Socialists,” said Gerardo Iglesias, general coordinator of the United Left.

Sunday’s results were a clear victory for Communist Julio Anguita, the bearded 48-year-old former mayor of Cordoba who was leading his party for the first time in a national election.

Also pleased was 36-year-old Jose Maria Aznar, the former governor of Castille-Leon who was making his national debut at the head of a conservative Popular Party that urged reduced government spending and privatization of state enterprises.

“We are satisfied. We are the alternative. Our trajectory is clear,” a hoarse and happy Aznar told supporters. Aznar had assumed control of the party less than two months before Gonzalez called the election, eight months early to take advantage of inexperience and disarray among his opponents.