Spain’s prime minister faces defeat in no-confidence vote

MARIANO RAJOY is facing defeat in a vote to oust him as prime minister of Spain, with his party likely to lose its grip on power following a corruption scandal.

The prime minister’s rule is almost certainly at an end after opposition parties in the Spanish parliament yesterday vowed to back a motion of no confidence after former senior officials within his party were jailed for creaming profits from state contracts.

Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the main opposition socialist party, will become prime minister in place of Mr Rajoy when, as is expected, Spain’s Congress supports the motion in a vote today.

The dramatic demise of Mr Rajoy’s conservative government creates fresh uncertainty within the Eurozone’s southern reaches as Italy’s political crisis threatened to take that country into a third election in as many years. However, there appeared to be a last-ditch attempt in Rome to form a new government late last night.

There was speculation that Mr Rajoy could resign before the vote, in which case his People’s Party (PP) government would remain in power as an interim administration. But María Dolores de Cospedal, the PP secretary general, said last night that Mr Rajoy would not stand down “as it would not benefit the interests of Spain”.

While Mr Sánchez seems certain to win the motion, it will be hard for the socialists to govern effectively with only 84 members in the 350-strong lower house. Mr Sánchez has said he plans to call elections before the legislature expires in 2020.

The socialists triggered the motion after a court in Madrid last week sentenced several former PP officials, including a treasurer, to hefty jail sentences in a corruption trial. In their verdict, the judges concluded that the PP had run a slush fund of kickbacks from companies from 1989 to 2005.

Mr Rajoy was called as a witness, but his testimony that the PP had not used “off-the-books” accounting was described by the judges as “not credible”.