Spain’s Gonzalez Calls Early Elections for March : Politics: Slipping support and scandals force prime minister to schedule vote. He has reluctantly agreed to run again.

Buffeted by political scandals, four-time Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez on Thursday called early elections after reluctantly agreeing to run.

Gonzalez, picked by his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party last week, set parliamentary elections for March 3, more than a year before the end of his mandate. He was not obliged to call elections until June 1997.

The prime minister moved quickly into the campaign mode, saying a conservative government might not be able to lead Spain into the 21st century.

Most polls indicate the center-right Popular Party probably will win at least a plurality in the 350-seat lower house of the Cortes, or parliament.

The Socialists swept to power in October 1982 with a landslide victory and a clear mandate for change. But scandals involving top party and government officials have steadily eroded their popularity.

The party won only 159 seats in the lower house in June 1993 elections, and was forced to piece together a ruling coalition. The Socialists lost the support of a key regional party from Catalonia last summer, and at that time Gonzalez promised to call elections for March.

Popular Party leader Jose Maria Aznar has been demanding new elections and Gonzalez’s resignation since the 1993 elections. The conservative leader has called Gonzalez morally unfit to govern, saying he presided over scandals ranging from illegal party financing to alleged death squads that operated against Basque separatists.

Judicial investigations are underway on several of the accusations, and several trial dates have been set.

The March elections will be the seventh since Spain returned to democracy in 1977, two years after Gen. Francisco Franco’s death ended his 36-year authoritarian rule.