I won't be back
Former Prime Minister set to leave Santa Pola after spending less than six weeks in the tourist town
Former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (PP) is set to leave Santa Pola after spending less than six weeks at his property registration office post
JUST over a month after arriving in Alicante province to take up his old job as head of the property registry office in Santa Pola, former PM Mariano Rajoy has managed to get a transfer to Madrid.
The 63 year old had returned to the profession he left when he embarked on a career in politics in 1987.
The arrival of the former Partido Popular (PP) leader in the coastal town sparked a media frenzy, with a scrum of journalists and cameramen waiting for him to enter the office on Calle Soria on his first day at the end of June.
At the time Sr Rajoy said that he had ‘come to stay’ – but in the end his stay lasted less than six weeks.
Following the motion of no-confidence which ousted the PP from the government at the end of May, Sr Rajoy announced that he was going to resign his seat in Parliament but few people expected the Galician politician to return to the property registry profession, when he could have drawn a salary for life as former PM.
When Sr Rajoy entered politics, a provisional worker was taken on at the Santa Pola property registry office and the ex-PP leader’s position was kept open in case he decided to return.
The man who filled Sr Rajoy’s shoes on a ‘temporary’ basis for 28 years, Francisco Riquelme had told the press that the former PM was ‘looking forward to returning to a normal life, with a private life’. He said that the ex-PP leader would work in Santa Pola during the week and return to his home in Madrid at weekends.
However, life away from his family, staying in an expensive hotel in Alicante city, appears not to have been to the former politician’s liking.
State news agency EFE reported that Sr Rajoy had been handed a place in property registry office number 5 in the capital. He will work from the Paseo de la Castellana, which is in the heart of the financial district.
Sr Rajoy will be around one kilometre from the PP headquarters in Calle Génova.
According to EFE, the same public document which recorded Sr Rajoy’s transfer, noted that his sister Mercedes Rajoy Brey – also a property registrar – would be moving from Getafe to an office in Madrid.