LEAD: Political veteran Rubalcaba elected Spanish Socialist leader

Feb 4, 2012, 17:30 GMT

Seville, Spain - Spain's Socialist Party on Saturday elected former interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba its new leader, giving him a tight victory at a congress in the southern city of Seville.

The 60-year-old political veteran took 487 votes against 465 for his challenger, former defence minister Carme Chacon, 41.

Rubalcaba will succeed Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who led the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) for more than a decade and governed Spain for nearly eight years.

He faces the task of helping the PSOE recover from its massive election defeat to the opposition conservatives in November, and of shaping the party as a left-wing political alternative in the post-Zapatero era.

Formerly a chemistry professor at a Madrid university, Rubalcaba began his political career as a government official under 1982-1996 Socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, who later made him education minister and government spokesman.

Interior minister and deputy prime minister under 2004-2011 premier Zapatero, Rubalcaba's biggest success was his contribution to defeating the Basque separatist group ETA, which announced in October that it was ending its campaign of bombings and shootings after 43 years.

However, Rubalcaba carries the stigma of having lost to conservative leader and current Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in the November elections, in which he was the Socialist candidate.

Rubalcaba, whom his supporters see as representing experience and security, told the party congress he did not want to be a 'saviour.'

'I have never believed in saviours,' he said, but pledged that his adversaries would not 'break' him and that he would be 'a strong Socialist leader.'

Zapatero's rule was marked by bold social reforms such as allowing homosexual marriage, a strong promotion of women's rights, and easier access to abortion and divorce.

Rubalcaba praised Zapatero's 'social conquests,' which he now saw as being threatened by the conservative government's plans, which include cancelling Zapatero's liberal abortion law and abolishing the subject of citizens' education in schools.

Rubalcaba pledged to go even further on the leftist road than Zapatero had done, saying he may abolish cooperation agreements which give the Catholic Church a privileged position despite Spain officially being a non-confessional state.

During his second term, Zapatero came under scathing criticism for his handling of the global economic crisis, which hit Spain particularly hard.

The government was slow to recognize the seriousness the crisis and was finally forced to make a U-turn in its economic policies, adopting spending cuts and liberal reforms under European pressure.

Soaring unemployment contributed to the PSOE's crushing defeats in regional elections in May and in parliamentary elections in November.

Rajoy's centre-right People's Party (PP) now has an absolute majority in parliament, and governs 11 of Spain's 17 semi-autonomous regions.