Free Republic

Mariano Rajoy gains absolute majority with 16 percentage point win over José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialists The conservative People's party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy has swept to a landslide victory in Spain's general election, inheriting sky-high unemployment and one of the shakiest economies in Europe. Rajoy's PP gained an absolute parliamentary majority with a crushing 16 percentage point win over the Socialists of outgoing prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.   The Socialists lost a third of their seats as voters dumped a government that presided over a dramatic economic slump which has left 23% of Spaniards out of work.   With...

Spain's right stormed to a landslide election victory Sunday, an exit poll said, as voters toppled yet another eurozone government engulfed in a deepening debt crisis. Bowed by a 21.5 percent jobless rate, a stalled economy and spending cuts, the 36 million-strong electorate ended the Socialists' seven-year rule with a shattering defeat, the exit poll showed. Opposition leader Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party took an absolute majority of between 181 and 185 seats in the 350-member Congress of Deputies, said projections based on an exit poll by public broadcaster RTVE. The ruling Socialist party PSOE won between 115 and 119 seats,...

Spanish voters on Sunday are expected to dismiss the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and usher in the conservative People's Party (PP) and its leader, Mariano Rajoy. Mr. Zapatero’s Socialist party (PSOE), which has been in power for eight years, has borne the brunt of public blame for Spain’s increasingly perilous economic situation, which has tainted the party’s leadership candidate, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajoy has been coasting toward an expected landslide victory without saying much about how he plans to reverse Spain’s economic course... The situation is bleak for the eurozone’s fourth-largest...

Aznar ready to quit as his successor wins party backing By Isambard Wilkinson, Madrid Correspondent (Filed: 02/09/2003) The Spanish prime minister, José María Aznar, who supported the war in Iraq against enormous domestic opposition, had his hand-picked successor endorsed by his party yesterday, clearing the way for him to stand down. Mr Aznar, a former tax inspector who has served as prime minister for seven years but has been promising to step down for the past 18 months, named his deputy, Mariano Rajoy, to take over from him in elections next March. José María Aznar [right] and Mariano Rajoy When...