Spain's Socialists on March 2 savored the prospect of governing the troubled Basque region for the first time, after scoring big electoral gains at the expense of nationalists who have held power there for nearly 30 years.

No party won a majority in the March 1 voting for the 75-seat legislature in the prosperous northern region that borders France and has been wracked by decades of separatist violence. It will probably take weeks of negotiations before a new Basque government is formed.

In the last legislature, Basque Country President Juan Jos Ibarretxe's ruling Basque Nationalist Party led a minority coalition that totaled 32 seats but survived due to periodic support from other parties. Altogether, they surpassed non-nationalist parties.

On March 1, the ruling party again won the most seats and even gained an additional one — for a total of 30. But no openly pro-ETA (the armed Basque separatist group) party was allowed to run, so the party lost that cushion.