Rajoy returns to old job on twice his pay as Spanish leader

MARIANO RAJOY, fresh from his removal as prime minister of Spain, returned yesterday to the job he left 28 years ago: the post of property registrar in a small coastal town near Alicante.

Eschewing the well-trodden path into the lucrative speaking circuit, advisory roles or working for foundations, Mr Rajoy has opted to withdraw from public life.

Now anyone seeking to register a property in the resort town of Santa Pola (pop 30,000) may be attended to by none other than the former Spanish leader. Heading a team of seven, Mr Rajoy told reporters yesterday morning that he was “not nervous about my first day”.

Mr Rajoy declined to comment on the leadership race his departure had prompted in the conservative Popular Party, explaining that he did “not have much more to say”.

He said: “I am retiring from politics and returning to where I was.”

Mr Rajoy occupied the registrar post in Santa Pola for two years before leaving in 1990 to focus on his political career. He never formally relinquished the place in Spain’s College of Property Registrars, instead opting to have it temporarily filled by a close friend and local businessman, an arrangement that lasted for almost three decades.

But a yearning for normality may not be Mr Rajoy’s only motivation. While he was commended by supporters for choosing a provincial civil service post over the pension reserved for former prime ministers, the decision may also prove a profitable one.

According to Spanish press reports, the average income of a property registrar, while dependent on the volume of work, stands at around €15,000 (£13,000) a month, more than twice his pay as the country’s leader.