Spanish PM Rajoy urged to step down
‘Remaining is damaging’ to the country, opposition leader says ahead of no-confidence vote
Spain’s government was on the brink of collapse Thursday as opponents of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy appeared to have mustered enough support to oust him in a parliamentary no-confidence vote stemming from a corruption scandal.
The choice for Rajoy was increasingly stark: jump first and resign his post, or wait to be pushed out Friday when Parliament was scheduled for a vote he seemed nearly certain to lose. Either outcome would mean a change of leadership and would send the country sooner or later to new elections.
The issue is Rajoy and a longbuilding corruption scandal that has tainted his conservative Popular Party.
Last week, Spain’s national court sentenced more than two dozen business people and politicians — including the party’s former treasurer — on charges of operating a kickback scheme.
Afterward, Spain’s main opposition Socialist Party put forward a motion asking lawmakers to vote Rajoy from office and install a Socialist administration before another national election.
If that measure succeeds Friday, it would complete a remarkable comeback for Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez and make him Spain’s new prime minister. If Rajoy resigns, it would allow his deputy prime minister to take over on an interim basis.
By midafternoon, the Basque nationalist party said its lawmakers would support San- chez, ensuring that a vote of noconfidence would be approved by a slim majority of the 350 lawmakers in the Spanish Parliament. The two main Catalan separatist parties were also set to vote against Rajoy.
At the start of debate Thursday, Sanchez urged Rajoy to resign rather than getting voted out of office.
“What more needs to happen for you to understand that remaining is damaging and a burden not only for the country but also for your own party?” Sanchez said in Parliament, addressing Rajoy. Rajoy insisted Thursday morning that he had no intention of allowing Sanchez to run Spain.
Last week’s verdicts made Rajoy’s party the first Spanish political force to be convicted of operating a slush fund and ordered to pay a fine, 245,000 euros, about $370,000.