José María Aznar

José María Aznar López (born February 25, 1953, in Madrid, Spain) was President of the Spanish government from May 5 1996 to April 17 2004.

Prime Minister

After a strongly fought campaign against corruption scandals, Aznar won the March 3, 1996 general election with 37.6% of the vote. With 154 of the 350 seats (PSOE had 141) Aznar had to reach agreements with three nationalist parties: Convergence and Unity (Catalan), the Basque Nationalist Party and the Canary Islands Coalition, in order to govern. He was voted President with 181 votes in the Cortes general on May 4 and sworn in the next day by King Juan Carlos I.

Related Topics:
March 3 - 1996 - General election - Convergence and Unity - Basque Nationalist Party - Canary Islands Coalition - May 4 - Juan Carlos I

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His first term was dominated by the economic agenda and the need to negotiate with these nationalist parties.

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In the second term, the major interests of his administration were to further improve the Spanish economy and to fight against internal terrorism.

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His new majority allowed him to change his attitude towards nationalists, confronting them instead of negotiating.

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Aznar and his party adopted a defense of a strict wording of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, strongly opposing a plan for further Basque autonomy presented by Basque president Juan José Ibarretxe and any possibility of talking wih the democratic parties of the opposition in this issue.

Related Topics:
Spanish Constitution of 1978 - Basque president - Juan José Ibarretxe

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In the last years there were several issues that polarized Spanish and European opinion for or against him:

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• the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: He actively supported US President George W. Bush and Tony Blair in spite of a 89% public opposition and many protests and rallies that gathered 2 million people in Barcelona and 3 million people in Madrid. He didn't discuss or vote in the Spanish Congress the support for the war and weeks before the 2004 National Elections he continued justifying the invasion by saying that there were weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere in Irak and saying that the opposition parties weren't firmly against terrorism, claiming for the presence of weapons of mass destruction and that oil was going to be cheaper for Spanish people after helping Bush and Blair.
• how his government dealt with the ecological catastrophe of the sinking of the Prestige tanker
• the Yak-42 case: a Ukrainian plane carrying Spanish troops home from Afghanistan crashed over Turkey. The causes of the crash and the generalized misidentification of the corpses were discuted.
• the escalation of the prices of real estate.
• the refusal of talks with the Basque democratic parties that condemned the terrorists' acts by saying that they were part of the strategy of terrorist group ETA.

In January 2004 Aznar called new elections, having already announced he would not be seeking the prime minister's office again. He nominated Mariano Rajoy as the PP's candidate for elections held in March 2004, which the PP, although it had been leading in the polls, lost three days after the Madrid train bombings. In the last weeks his popularity was at the lowest point.

Related Topics:
2004 - Mariano Rajoy - Madrid train bombings

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His government strongly blamed the attack on ETA rather than a terrorist islamic group connected with Al-Qaeda, but contrary evidences was enough to bring to the polls millions of voters to change the social and political direction of the country leaving PP as the second party after José Luis Zapatero's PSOE.

Related Topics:
Al-Qaeda - José Luis Zapatero - PSOE

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After leaving office, he has presided over the FAES think tank, which is associated with the PP. He is a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown University. After a 2005 reform, promoted by the current Prime Minister of Spain Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero, admitted former prime ministers into the Spanish Council of State, a consultative organ, he has been the only one so far to become a member. The other former Presidents have refused the honor to avoid using that Council of State for political parties and own purposes.

Related Topics:
FAES - Georgetown University - 2005 - Spanish Council of State

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