Jaime Mayor Oreja
Opposition Leader, Basque Parliament
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It was a high-risk mission in the embattled Basque country, and to accomplish it Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar selected his ace, former Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja. The unenviable task for Mayor Oreja was to run as Madrid's candidate in the May 13 regional elections.
It sounds simple enough. But the 50-year-old Mayor Oreja, a Basque who has led the fight from Madrid against the ETA separatist army, is one of the most hated men in his native region. He put his life on the line to campaign, confronting one of Western Europe's enduring bastions of murderous intolerance.