Spain’s govt faces no confidence vote

Corruption scandals

MADRID: Spain’s government on Tuesday faced a vote of no confidence tabled by the far-left Podemos to denounce a series of corruption scandals that have hit Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative party.

The motion to unseat Rajoy is unlikely to succeed as a majority of lawmakers plan to vote against it or abstain, but it is once again shining the spotlight on the ruling Popular Party (PP), whose reputation has been damaged by graft case after graft case.

"You have more (party) members under investigation than lawmakers in the lower and upper houses," Irene Montero, a 29-year-old psychologist and one of Podemos’s top leaders, told parliament before enumerating a long list of cases hitting the PP.

"You want to normalise the plundering of public coffers, normalise spending cuts... you want to normalise the deterioration of our health system," she said.

Rajoy listened as she spoke for just over two hours, while PP government spokesman and culture minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo sat reading a book.

"Zzz," tweeted the PP on its official account.

"If this bores you, imagine 21 years and one day in Soto del Real," retorted Inigo Errejon, another high-level Podemos member, on Twitter, referring to a prison where the former PP president of the Madrid regional government is being held, accused of embezzlement.

Rajoy then took the stand, thanking Montero for her "loving" words and accusing Podemos of putting on a highly-mediatised "performance."

"I won’t deny that there have been corruption cases in the Popular Party like in other parties, some very serious," he said, adding however that graft was "the exception and not the rule" in Spain.

"This scourge won’t stop because you submit votes of no confidence," he told Podemos.

"It will stop because we approved measures and laws."

Rajoy, who came to power in 2011 with an absolute majority before losing ground in two inconclusive elections in 2015 and 2016, forcing him to head up a minority government, credited his time in office for dragging Spain out of an economic crisis.

Spain’s central bank on Tuesday lifted its economic growth forecast for 2017 to 3.1 percent from 2.8 percent -- well above the eurozone average -- although unemployment remains high at 18.7 percent.

This is only the third vote of no confidence to take place in Spain since the 1977 transition to democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, and none has ever succeeded.

Corruption is a major issue in Spain, which last year scored its worst ranking in Transparency International’s annual corruption perceptions index.

It has mainly hit the PP, with even Rajoy called to appear as a witness next month in a major graft trial involving members of his party.

Such is public anger over the issue that many voters flocked to Podemos and centre-right party Ciudadanos, two relatively new parties, in the recent general elections.