SPAIN/FILE: Opinion polls suggest opposition centre-right People's Party (PP) leader Mariano Rajoy is likely to become Spain's next Prime Minister

Record ID: 683156

  • Title: SPAIN/FILE: Opinion polls suggest opposition centre-right People's Party (PP) leader Mariano Rajoy is likely to become Spain's next Prime Minister
  • Date: 15th November 2011
  • Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (NOVEMBER 11, 2011) REUTERS) TRAFFIC AT PASEO DE LA CASTELLANA/ PEOPLE'S PARTY PLACARDS PLACARD AND PHOTO PROMOTING PEOPLE'S PARTY CANDIDATE MARIANO RAJOY VARIOUS OF PLACARDS PROMOTING RAJOY'S CAMPAIGN ALONG PASEO DE LA CASTELLANA MADRID, SPAIN (NOVEMBER 7, 2011) (REUTERS) ( ** BEWARE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE'S PARTY CANDIDATE MARIANO RAJ
  • Embargoed: 30th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAC4ADTWHJBSE2K8ZM7JZPBP2DT
  • Story Text: Spanish opposition leader Mariano Rajoy sees himself as a moderate head of the centre-right People's Party (PP), but is ready to inflict shock therapy on the economy if he wins the snap general election in November.
    Opinion polls suggest that Rajoy, a 56-year-old father of two, will lead the PP to victory over the ruling Socialists in the November 20 elections, after seven years in opposition.
    Rajoy expects a wave of strikes and protests in his first year in office, PP sources say. But he is determined they will not derail intense reforms aimed at preventing Spain from becoming the next victim of the euro zone debt crisis.
    "Our enemies and opponents are: the economy crisis and unemployment -- and we will defeat them," he said at a recent campaign rally in Toledo.
    Unemployment of 21.5 percent, the highest in the euro zone and austerity measures already imposed to allay investors' fears over Spanish debt levels, have hit incumbent Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his Socialist Workers' Party. The PP holds a 14 - 18 percent point lead over the Socialists in the polls.
    Rajoy, a moderate, is in a party whose image is often dominated by right-wingers associated with pro-U.S. former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
    The former has been criticised by his Socialist opponent Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba for having a hidden agenda of social cuts and for not explaining his proposed agenda to the public.
    Rajoy has responded to such criticism by reminding the public that Rubalcaba was part of Zapatero's government which, he says, refused to acknowledge the economy crisis in time to prevent it.
    "I promise to tell the truth and to act rigourously, with responsibility and I promise to be brave and cautious to rule Spain. Courage and wisdom are two absolutely compatible conditions," he told supporters.
    Rajoy will implement an economic "shock plan" if he wins power including strict spending and debt caps on Spain's 17 autonomous regions, senior advisers have told Reuters.
    Asked about how the public in general would receive such changes, Primitivo Saenz, a small business owner, said:
    "I am convinced that Mariano Rajoy will bring change. Everything will be better. At least that is what we, Spaniards, hope. I think he will do it. He will do it because Mariano Rajoy bets on a completely different government plan which will be better for all of us," Saenz said.
    Rajoy, a native of the rural northwestern region of Galicia, wears a scruffy beard first grown when the scars from a serious car accident prevented him from shaving.
    As opposition leader, his unrelenting criticism of the Zapatero government has given him a stern public image.
    "I don't think Mariano Rajoy has any charisma, I don't think he is a good politician and I don't think he delivers anything. But he will be the next prime minister," university student Stella Gonzalez told Reuters.
    Political analyst Charles Powell sees Rajoy as a leader who can drive Spain through necessary changes in times of crisis.
    "I think it is quite possible (he can succeed) as a candidate who can lead or reform this government in these very difficult time," he told Reuters Television.
    Powell thinks, however, that Rajoy might face difficulties in explaining his reforms.
    "He is not a particular charismatic figure. He is not terribly good at communicating with the public and this may be a problem because any future Spanish prime minister will have to do a lot of communicating and will have to really work hard at explaining what measures need to be taken and how they are going to be implemented."
    Rajoy held four ministerial posts under Aznar and, had it not been for an Islamist attack on Madrid commuter trains three days before a general election in 2004, many think, he would already have been prime minister.
    The then outgoing government of Aznar, who had personally picked Rajoy months earlier to lead the PP, wrongly blamed the Basque guerrilla group ETA for the 2004 bombings.
    This mistake handed a surprise victory to Zapatero, who went on to win a second term in 2008, before the full force of the worst recession to hit Spain in half a century destroyed jobs and slashed property prices.
    Instead, Rajoy found himself leading the opposition to Zapatero's Socialists, watching while Spain slid towards the debt crisis which has already overwhelmed Greece, Ireland and neighbouring Portugal.

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