Frustrated Franco followers plot to oust party leader

SPAIN: The Popular Party is tearing itself apart after another electoral defeat, writes Jane Walker in Madrid

SPAIN:The Popular Party is tearing itself apart after another electoral defeat, writes Jane Walkerin Madrid

SPAIN'S CONSERVATIVE opposition Popular Party is immersed in an internal struggle which threatens its very future.

To many observers it is reminiscent of an earlier feud which split the party - then operating under its previous title of Popular Alliance (AP) - in the early 1980s when disillusioned members broke away to form the now-defunct Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD).

PP, led by the former prime minister José María Aznar, governed Spain for eight years until 2004. Mr Aznar decided not to serve a third term and personally appointed Mariano Rajoy, a dour character, lacking in charisma, as his hand-picked successor.

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Many speculated that he did so because he believed he would be able to control him from behind the scenes.

In the March general elections PP failed, for the second time, to beat José Maria Rodriguez Zapatero's socialist government. Many of his party blamed Mr Rajoy for the defeat and called for his resignation. But he is a stubborn man who refuses to give in to their demands.

Instead, he pushed aside many of the older party officials and replaced them with younger, more moderate members to support him in his efforts to push the party to the centre.

He also convened a party congress next month, hoping to strengthen his position by winning unanimous support from the party faithful.

But his ploy seems to have backfired and instead of lining up behind him, PP has split into two factions - the loyal Rajoy supporters versus the old guard who want to replace him with Madrid's ambitious regional president Esperanza Aguirre.

Her tough, hardline brand of right-wing conservatism has considerable support among the rank and file citizens and most significantly that of Mr Aznar, who yesterday joined the offensive against Mr Rajoy.

There were noisy and unpleasant scenes in Madrid last weekend when a memorial to Eta bomb victims was unveiled. The mostly middle-class crowd heckled Mr Rajoy and Madrid's mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon, a bitter rival of Mrs Aguirre, who has come out in support of the Rajoy camp.

More surprisingly, the booing and jeering was also aimed at the party veteran Manuel Fraga Iribarne. But they were noisily enthusiastic in their support for Mrs Aguire, with hundreds cheering and chanting "Presidente! Presidente!"

Another vociferous opponent has emerged in the Basque Country where the PP Basque leader Maria San Gil joined the fray when she declared that she no longer supported or respected Mr Rajoy.

Many of the PP's woes almost certainly stem from the fact that, unlike most other European countries, Spain's ultra right have no home of their own.

The old fascist parties have disappeared, and many of their supporters were absorbed into the ranks of the PP (or AP is it was then known) in the heady days of the democratic transition after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

But a leopard cannot change its spots, and however hard they have tried to demonstrate their moderate, centrist, democratic credentials, those old rightwingers are still alive and potentially kicking - and threatening Mr Rajoy.