Socialists hit out at Aznar after ex-PM calls into question approach to Gaddafi

Socialists said Tuesday that former conservative leader José María Aznar is leading a campaign of "suspicion, insidiousness and ill will," after the ex-prime minister criticized the government's sale of cluster bombs to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. On Monday, he also voiced doubts about Spain's solvency at a speech in New York.

In a press conference at Socialist Party headquarters, spokeswoman Elena Valenciano argued that Aznar's public statements were bad for the Spanish economy. "When the national debt is running into trouble in the markets, we would expect the Popular Party [PP] to do exactly the opposite of what it is doing," she said, in reference to a jump in Spain's borrowing costs at Monday debt tender, amid fears of Greece restructuring its debt.

Valenciano also criticized the PP's economic chief, Cristóbal Montoro, who supported Aznar's thesis about the Spanish economy.

The main opposition party, Valenciano suggested, "would rather bet against Spain" just to win votes in next year's general elections, even as it maintains "a hidden agenda" based on under-funding critical public services such as education and health.

Meanwhile, current PP leader Mariano Rajoy is keeping silent, "and won't correct [Aznar] probably because he owes him his job," said Valenciano.

On Monday, Aznar said at a speech in Estepona, Málaga, that Gaddafi "wanted to cooperate with the international community" after seeing what happened "to a dictator much worse than himself," in reference to Saddam Hussein and the 2003 invasion of Iraq - which, controversially, Aznar brought Spain into.

"Gaddafi must have done something for the Socialist government of Spain to sell him cluster bombs in 2007. Or does the Socialist government sell to its enemies and not its friends?" said Aznar, who was prime minister between 1996 and 2004.

Regarding his comments about the economy, Aznar said that "we believe in the solvency and the future of Spain, but we also believe in the inconsistency, the incompetence and the insolvency of Mr Zapatero and his group of friends.

"Socialist ministers received the best economic legacy Spain ever had," he went on. "Never before had they received such a prosperous, wealthy nation, and they have destroyed it in seven years... They stopped the reforms, denied the crisis, [...] and now we know what they want: you either shut up about it or you're unpatriotic, either you look the other way or you're unpatriotic."