He said that he wouldn’t, but pressured by his own party (PP), José Torres Hurtado has resigned, faced with an eminent vote of no confidence from the ranks of the opposition parties.
He complained before that he didn’t know what he was being charged with, but he does now: bribery, fraud in public procurement, unlawful association, abusing his authority, embezzlement of public monies, traffic of influences, fraud, falsification of commercial documents, fraudulent administration and of being really, really naughty.
This resignation, together with the resignation in Madrid of the Minister of Industry, Manuel Sorias, over hiding undeclared earnings in offshore tax havens, has left the Prime Minister in an impossible position. However, he appears to be intent upon ignoring it and hoping that it will all go away, banking his political future on winning a rerun of the blocked General Election.
Even conservative demigod José María Aznar has come under fire for failing to pay his full tax obligations.
Yet, even though the conservative Partido Popular appears to be imploding, beset by endemic corruption within its ranks across the country, millions of right-wing Spaniards will vote for them, regardlessly, begging the question: who is more guilty; corrupt politicians or those that knowingly vote for them?
(News: Granada, Spain)
I suppose that is why Franco won the civil war and remained in power for so long. The majority of Spanish people are right wing, what other Western democracy would put up with the amount of corruption the Partido Popular has been associated with in the last few years, It would not surprise me if they won a majority in the next general election.
Michael Wright, Las Terrazas, Carmenes del Mar
Actually, the problem is not that the majority of Spaniards are right-wing; they are not, but that there has only been one party, traditionally speaking, that represents the right wing, whereas there are three, at the moment, that represent the left wing.
Therefore, it is mathematically inevitable that the right-wing party will come out top as the most-voted party.
If the left-wing vote all went to the same party, then the Partido Popular would never get it.
Lately we have a Catalan regional party that has made it onto the national spectrum (Ciudadanos) who are right-wing, who don’t have the Franco baggage on board, as the Partido Popular does. Let us not forget that the Partido Popular astutely changed its name from the Alianza Popular; i.e., an alliance of right-wing parties, including the most ardent fascist party, to the modest centre-right wing.
In other words, the PP, houses everybody from the equivalent of the Le Pen brand to the moderates. Ciudadanos doesn’t have that problem.
Personally, I hope, for the good of the Spanish right wing, that the moderates in the PP transfer over to Ciudadanos leaving the radicals behind.