Mariano Rajoy

Mariano Rajoy (born March 27, 1955, Santiago de Compostela, Spain) is a Spanish politician who served as prime minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018.

Rise to power

Rajoy was raised in the Galicia region of northern Spain. He studied law at the University of Santiago de Compostela, receiving a degree in 1978. After briefly working as a land registrar, he embarked on a career in politics, being elected when 26 years old as a regional deputy for what would become the Popular Party (Partido Popular; PP). He served in local and regional government through most of the 1980s.

From 1996 Rajoy served in the PP government of Prime Minister José María Aznar, holding, successively, the posts of minister of public administration, minister of education and culture, and minister of the interior, and in 2003 Aznar handpicked Rajoy as the party’s new leader. The following year the conservative PP was expected to claim another victory in the general elections, but what was widely perceived as the government’s inadequate response to the Madrid train bombings, which occurred just days before the election, put a dent in the party’s support. Rajoy again failed to lead the PP to victory in 2008. But as the European sovereign debt crisis continued to escalate, the PP ousted the reigning Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español; PSOE) with a landslide victory in the 2011 election, winning the biggest parliamentary majority in nearly three decades.

A social conservative raised as a Roman Catholic, Rajoy was especially outspoken about curbing abortion rights and in his opposition to same-sex marriages. Nevertheless, during his tenure in the PP, he helped lead the party from the hard right to centre-right. Many hoped that Rajoy and the PP, which had, from the late 1990s, overseen the fiscal preparations necessary for Spain to adopt the euro, would help steer the country out of spiraling recession. He was sworn in as prime minister on December 21, 2011, and he pledged to implement a series of austerity measures that would reduce Spain’s deficit. Indeed, Spain’s 2012 budget was regarded as the most austere since the restoration of democracy, with an array of tax hikes and cuts to social welfare programs.

Austerity, Catalonian independence, and political collapse

Rajoy’s reform efforts triggered a fierce backlash from trade unions and initially did little to reverse the economic downturn. In July 2012 the Spanish banking sector received a €100 billion (more than $125 billion) bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, and the economy stabilized somewhat in 2013, but public dissatisfaction with Rajoy remained high, as few of the larger financial gains were felt among the middle class. Unemployment remained at record levels, and separatist movements in the Basque Country and Catalonia became increasingly vocal in their demands for greater autonomy.

Indeed, on November 9, 2015, the regional parliament in Catalonia began the process of seceding from Spain by narrowly approving a measure to implement a “peaceful disconnection from the Spanish state.” Pro-independence parties had won 62 seats in regional parliamentary elections in Catalonia in September. Although that left them short of a majority, they were able to form a coalition government with the anti-austerity Popular Unity Candidacy. Those who favoured independence interpreted the result as a de facto referendum on secession, while the Rajoy government dismissed such claims. Rajoy responded to the secession declaration with an immediate appeal to the Spanish Constitutional Court and stated adamantly that “Catalonia will not disconnect itself from anywhere.”

Public opposition to additional austerity measures by the Rajoy government coalesced into Podemos (“We Can”), a party founded in 2014 that quickly asserted its influence on the political scene. With support plunging for established parties such as the PP and the Socialists, Rajoy nonetheless stressed the need for continued adherence to austerity measures. By 2015 the Spanish economy had begun to turn around, becoming one of the fastest-growing in Europe. However, in December 2015, when voters went to the polls for a parliamentary election, unemployment still stood at 21 percent. The electorate’s disenchantment with both the PP and PSOE showed in the election results. The PP finished first but lost its parliamentary majority, tumbling from 186 seats in 2011 to 123 seats in 2015, whereas the PSOE finished second, dropping from 110 seats in 2011 to 90 seats in 2015. Their losses came at the expense of a surging Podemos, which won 69 seats, and the burgeoning centre-right Ciudadanos (Citizens), which adamantly opposed Catalan separatism and secured 40 seats.

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Rajoy was unable to build the consensus necessary to form a government, and another election was held in June 2016. Once again the PP finished first but well short of a majority. The deadlock continued, and it appeared that Spain would be conducting its third election in just over a year, with polling scheduled to be held on Christmas Day. In late October, however, the Socialists pledged to abstain from a vote of confidence on Rajoy’s prime ministership, effectively granting him the authority to form a minority government. He was reelected prime minister on October 29, 2016.

Unemployment remained high, but Rajoy’s domestic concerns were increasingly focused on Catalonia, where the independence movement had received an enormous boost in the wake of the Brexit vote. For the first time, opinion polls showed that a majority of Catalans favoured a split from Spain, and Madrid adopted an increasingly heavy hand in its dealings with Catalan leaders in Barcelona. A Catalonian independence referendum held on October 1, 2017, was marred by violence, with hundreds of prospective voters injured in clashes with police. When the Catalan parliament voted to declare independence from Spain on October 27, Rajoy responded by invoking Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, stripping the autonomous community of power and imposing direct rule from Madrid.

The uncompromising response buoyed Rajoy’s popularity, but the weakness of his minority government was cast into sharp relief when the PP became embroiled in a massive corruption scandal. The crimes predated Rajoy’s administration, but critics alleged that Rajoy had failed to take responsibility for his party’s failings. On June 1, 2018, PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez, with the support of Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, ousted Rajoy after filing a motion of no confidence against his prime ministership. Rajoy became the first Spanish leader since the restoration of democracy to be removed from power through such a move.