Rajoy calls for party unity while ex-PM Aznar laments Zapatero legacy

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy addressed the Popular Party (PP) congress in Seville this past weekend with one clear message for his center-right colleagues: he needs their full support to get Spain to accept a slew of upcoming reforms aimed at pulling the country out of the economic crisis.

“People no longer expect complaints, claims, suggestions or promises from us,” he told the crowd. “They expect solutions. We said, ‘If you vote for us, we’ll get Spain going again.’ They took us seriously. ‘We’ve already voted for you,’ they say now. ‘Keep your word. Do what you have to do, and do it fast.’ The time for answers is here. It is time for everything we had ready to now be implemented.”

Although he failed to mention them specifically, Rajoy was no doubt thinking about Sunday’s street demonstrations against his government’s labor reform, which represent the first nationwide protests against his government since the PP won the November elections in a landslide victory over the Socialists.

And he was also likely to be thinking about further cuts that will be announced after Andalusia holds regional elections next month, when the PP hopes to wrest control of this large area from the Socialists, thus putting the conservatives in power in most of Spain’s 17 regional governments.

As a matter of fact, never in the history of democratic Spain has one government leader accumulated so much internal and external power — not even in the days of Felipe González and his Socialist majority. The PP controls nearly all of Spain’s major institutions, making it easier than ever to implement policies. But Rajoy is aware that he is his own worst enemy, in that all eyes are on him to see whether he will be able to deliver on repeated promises of turning the Spanish economy around in record time.

That is why he underscored the need for party support when all his unpopular measures are finally revealed. “I am the head of government because the parliament elected me, and before that, because the people did; but they elected me because the PP put my name forward. I don’t want this to ever be forgotten. Ministers, premiers... none of us would be here if we were not members of the PP.”

“Today we need the party more than ever, because we have more things to think about, more problems to solve, more tasks to coordinate,” insisted Rajoy, who spent most of his career discreetly climbing party rungs until then-party leader José María Aznar decided to make him his protégé.

The former prime minister was also at the 17th PP Congress, where he delivered his own speech asking for urgent reforms but also stressing issues that he considers to be vital.

“Spaniards voted for us so we will face these [difficult circumstances] without hesitation or delay,” said Aznar, who was head of government between 1996 and 2004, when he was replaced by the Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. “We have left behind the worst government in the history of democracy. [...] I don’t know of any other country in the world capable of remaining united despite a jobless rate of more than 20 percent for so long, or despite such a destruction of its business fabric, or such a sustained, obstinate attack against its institutions and its symbols.”