National
Ángel Acebes walks from the post of Secretary General of the Partido Popular
By h.b.
May 5, 2008 - 4:56 PM

The Secretary General of the Partido Popular, Ángel Acebes, has announced in a brief statement that he is leaving the post.
‘I have communicated to the President of the Partido Popular my decision not to continue in the post of Party Secretary General’, he said.

He will be leaving the post at the P.P. Party Congress which will be held in Valencia in June, and told journalists in the corridors of Congress today that a stage had come to an end where he had worked as hard as possible for the party over the past four years. The statement released by the party sees Acebes thank Mariano Rajoy for the trust placed in him, and there is also thanks for the loyalty of the party activists, sympathisers and party workers. ‘Together we have defended the general interests of the Spanish people in circumstances which were very often difficult’.
Ángel Acebes then reaffirms his commitment to the principles, ethics and policies of the Partido Popular.

PP leader Mariano Rajoy responded by saying that he would never forget the ‘absolute loyalty’ of Acebes, who had, he said, carried out an extraordinary job. He said that Acebes was not leaving politics, merely preferring to move to the second line.
PP founder Manuel Fraga commented that it was time for renovation in the party and he understood Acebes decision to go perfectly.

It means that six top names of the Partido Popular have left the leadership of Mariano Rajoy over the past year. The departures started with the PP leader on the Balearics, Jaume Matas, who announced his retirement from active politics in June last year.

Josep Piqué, who left in July last year saying in a letter to Rajoy that his ‘image had been demolished’ in the differences between the Madrid and Catalan sections of the party. Piqué was followed by his right hand man, Francesc Vendrell, and hours later by Josep Sana, both also from the party in Cataluña.

Eduardo Zaplana left in April this year, preferring to leave politics for a post in Telefónica, and now in May, the decision of Ángel Acebes.