Spanish prime minister keeps job despite turmoil

By Raphael Minder, New York Times News Service

Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Mariano Rajoy was re-elected as Spain’s prime minister Saturday, ending a bitter period of political deadlock.

Members of the Spanish Parliament voted, 170-111, in favor of Rajoy, with 68 Socialist lawmakers abstaining. Rajoy is set to form a new conservative government in the coming week, after two inconclusive national elections and 10 months of stalemate.

The parliamentary vote took place two days before a deadline to avoid a third national election. That deadline played in Rajoy’s favor, leading to a revolt within the Socialist opposition, which has been leaderless all month.

Rajoy will lead a minority government with the weakest parliamentary support since Spain’s return to democracy four decades ago. But his re-election confirmed Rajoy as one of Spain’s great political survivors.

Protesters gathered outside Parliament before the vote. About 4,000 demonstrators held signs questioning the legitimacy of Rajoy’s re-election and denouncing his conservative Popular Party as corrupt.

Rajoy, 61, has stayed in charge of the party despite losing general elections to the Socialists in 2004 and 2008. He finally became prime minister on his third attempt, when his party won an absolute majority in 2011.

Since then, Rajoy has maintained a firm grip on the leadership of the Popular Party, even as his personal popularity has suffered amid high unemployment and a series of corruption scandals centering on his party.

In the coming weeks, Rajoy will present a budget for 2017 that will be the first major test of his ability to pass legislation without a parliamentary majority. He will be under pressure to make budgetary concessions to regional and left-wing parties, but his spending will be curtailed by deficit targets imposed by the European Union.

Because his coalition is weak, Rajoy is unlikely to complete another four-year mandate, said Antonio Barroso, a Spanish analyst at Teneo Intelligence, a London-based political consultancy. But if Rajoy can survive the first six months, he can still wield “the threat of dissolving Parliament,” Barroso added.

That threat could be enough to keep the Socialists in line, at least in the short term. Under Spain’s Constitution, a new national election cannot be called until May 3.