The Prime Minister of Spain was abruptly forced out of office on Friday as a result of backlash from a corruption scandal involving members of his political party.
Mariano Rajoy, leader of the Partido Popular (People’s Party, or PP), lost a vote of no confidence from the Spanish Congress on Friday. Ahead of the vote Rajoy said he would refuse to step down, saying that his victory in the 2016 election had given him a mandate to govern.
However, a major corruption scandal proved too much for one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders to endure.
At issue is the so-called “Gürtel case,” in which accused businessman Francisco Correa was found to have paid the PP party officials bribes between the years 1999 and 2006 in return for favorable contracts to carry out public works and organize events. Last week, former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas — who was a close ally of Rajoy — was sentenced to 33 years in jail for his part in this arrangement, while the PP was fined $280,000.
Rajoy was replaced by Pedro Sánchez, leader of Spain’s socialist (PSOE) party. Addressing the Congress Sánchez vowed to address the “social urgencies” that Spain was facing, including an unemployment rate of nearly 17 per cent.
Mariano Rajoy leaves parliament in Madrid after being forced out as Spanish PMhttps://t.co/i81EerXWiS pic.twitter.com/U8Mm34BNFS
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 1, 2018
However, Sánchez’s PSOE only controls 84 of the Spanish Congress’ 350 seats, which means that he will need to work with smaller parties, including the populist leftist Podemos party, the center-right Ciudadanos party (which adamantly opposes Catalonian independence), and a group of smaller parties including Basque and Catalan nationalists. Whether or not Sánchez can govern such a diverse group of small political parties in an effective manner remains to be seen.
“We fear that the already very serious crisis will get even worse should Sánchez manage to achieve his ambitions to get into government with the meager support of his 84 deputies in Congress,” read an editorial in El Pais, one of the country’s main newspapers. “Governing a country that is facing political, economic, social and territorial challenges with such scant support will, without a doubt, generate further instability, and will contribute further to the deterioration of trust in Spain’s institutions.”
Rajoy’s resignation is the latest political flashpoint in southern Europe. On Thursday in Italy, the populist League and Five-Star Movement parties agreed, finally, to form a government. Their appointment creates a major problem for the European Union, as both had made an electoral pledge to renegotiate Italy’s relationship with the EU.
Perhaps more worryingly, both the League and Five-Star Movement have some extremely hardline views on immigration. The League’s leader, Matteo Salvini, had previously promised to introduce a program to send 400,000 migrants back to their country of origin, and said that Italy is facing a “tide of delinquents…packed with drug dealers, rapists, burglars.”
Spain is also facing the thorny issue of Catalan independence. Last October, Spanish National Police and Civil Guardsmen used rubber bullets and batons to forcibly prevent a referendum on Catalan independence. Nearly 900 civilians were injured, further fanning the flames of independence in one of Spain’s most prosperous regions.