National
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero invested as Prime Minister of Spain today
By h.b.
Apr 11, 2008 - 7:42 AM

The Socialist Candidate, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will be invested as Prime Minister today in a second vote in Congress. He becomes the first person to have won a General Election in Spain who has needed a second vote, where only a simple majority is needed, to be elected.

Under Spanish law this second vote cannot take place for 48 hours after the first one, which means that it will happen after 1250pm today. It’s thought that Zapatero will be supported only by the 169 deputies of his own party.

Political observers think that Zapatero has chosen this route, of not forming alliances with Nationalist parties, following criticism in the last legislature that his policies were mortgaged to the nationalists as a result.

Tomorrow he will meet with King Juan Carlos to present the names of his new cabinet. Four new faces are expected, and the name of Elena Salgado as new minister for defence has been widely leaked. María Teresa Fernández de la Vega and Pedro Solbes are known to continue, and it is thought that other cabinet members, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Miguel Angel Moratinos and Mariano Fernández Bermejo will also survive.

Meanwhile on the other side of the political divide, news comes that Esperanza Aguirre, the PP President of Madrid, who is widely thought to be considering making a leadership challenge against Mariano Rajoy, will be meeting with Francisco Camps, the party’s leader in Valencia. Officially the subject of water is the reason for the meeting, but most observers say that discussion on the future of the Partido Popular is more likely. Camps has come out as a firm supporter of Mariano Rajoy and he is reported to have requested the meeting.

Yesterday Esperanza Aguirre said that all she wanted to do was ‘open an ideological debate in the Partido Popular’.