PEOPLE'S PARTY (SPAIN)

The 'People's Party' (Spanish: ''Partido Popular'', PP) is the largest center-right political party in Spain.
The People's Party was a refoundation of the Popular Alliance (''Alianza Popular'', AP), a party led and founded by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a former government minister under Francisco Franco. PP gathered the conservative AP and several small Christian-democratic and liberal parties. In 2002 Manuel Fraga received the honorary title of "Founding President".
The PP is now the largest opposition party in the Congress of Deputies, with 148 out of 350 deputies, and is only 4 seats short of a majority in the Senate, with 126 out of 259 senators.
PP is a member of both the International Democrat Union and the Christian Democrat International.
PP is a member of the European People's Party (EPP). In the European Parliament its 24 MEPs sit with the EPP-ED Group.

Contents

Early beginnings

Consolidation

Aznar Years (1989-2004)

Opposition Party (2004-present)

Notable members

See also

External links

Early beginnings

The Popular Alliance was founded in October 9, 1976 by Manuel Fraga who had helped to prepare the way for reform during the Franco era and who had expected to play a key role in post-Franco governments. He underestimated the popular desire for change and distaste for Francoism, and he advocated an extremely gradual transition to democracy. Although Fraga had originally intended to convey a reformist image, his party was perceived by the electorate as both reactionary and authoritarian When elections were held in June 1977, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote.
In the months following the 1977 elections, dissension erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. Fraga wanted to move the AP toward the political centre in order to form a larger centre-right party. Most of the disenchanted reactionaries left the AP, and Fraga and the remaining AP members joined other more moderately conservative party leaders to form the Democratic Coalition (''Coalición Democratica'', CD). It was hoped that this new coalition would capture the support of those who had voted for the Democratic Centre Union (UCD) in 1977, but who had become disenchanted with the Adolfo Suárez government. When elections were held in March 1979, however, the CD received only 6.1 percent of the vote.

Consolidation

The ''AP's Third Party Congress'' in December 1979, party leaders were reassessing their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had merely confused the voters, and they sought to emphasize the AP's independent identity. Fraga resumed control of the party, and the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP.
In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership. He was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general elections held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right, and it became the major opposition party, securing 25.4 percent of the popular vote. Whereas the AP's parliamentary representation had dropped to 9 seats in 1979, the party allied itself with the small christian-democratic Democratic Popular Party (PDP) and won 106 seats in 1982. The increased strength of the AP was further evidenced in the municipal and regional elections held in May 1983, when the party drew 26 percent of the vote. A significant portion of the electorate appeared to support the AP's emphasis on law and order as well as its probusiness policies.
Subsequent political developments belied the party's aspirations to continue increasing its base of support. Prior to the June 1986 elections, the AP once again joined forces with the PDP and with the Liberal Party (PL), formed the Popular Coalition (''Coalición Popular'', CP), in another attempt to expand its constituency to include the centre of the political spectrum. The coalition called for stronger measures against terrorism, for more privatization, and for a reduction in spending and in taxes. The CP failed to increase its share of the vote in the 1986 elections, however, and it soon began to disintegrate.
When regional elections in late 1986 resulted in further losses for the coalition, Fraga resigned as AP president, although he retained his parliamentary seat. At the party congress in February 1987, Hernandez was chosen to head the AP, declaring that under his leadership the AP would become a "modern right-wing European party." But Hernandez lacked political experience at the national level, and the party continued to decline. When support for the AP plummeted in the municipal and regional elections held in June 1987, it was clear that it would be overtaken as major opposition party by Suarez's Democratic and Social Centre (CDS).
In 1989, Popular Alliance, PDP and PL merged in the People's Party.
After the resignation of Manuel Fraga, and the successive victories of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party in the general elections of 1982 and 1986, Popular Alliance entered a deep crisis. Fraga then took the reins and, at the Congress of January of 1989, the CP was reestablished as a single party, new People's Party, that carried the characteristics of AP. Fraga was the first president of the party, with Francisco Álvarez Cascos as the secretary general.

Aznar Years (1989-2004)

Main articles: José María Aznar

On 4 September 1989, José María Aznar (then president of Autonomous Region of Castile and León) was elected candidate for Spanish president to the general elections, at the suggestion of the Fraga himself. In April of 1990, Aznar became president of the party. Fraga would later be named president founder of the People's Party
The PP was the governing party from 1996 to 2004, led by President ''(Presidente del Gobierno)'' José María Aznar. The PP won the general elections for the first time 1996, and José María Aznar became president of the Government with the support of the Basque Nationalist Party, CiU and the Canary Coalition.
In 1998 the Basque Nationalist Party negotiations with ETA produced no agreement, but subsequently the two formed a nationalist front in the "Pact of Estella" and, after the elections of May of 1999, having wagered Euskal Herritarrok, successor of Herri Batasuna, by the democratic ways, a Basque Nationalist Party government agreement signs itself-EA-EH and breaks the agreement between Basque Nationalist Party People's Party.
The Basque Nationalist Party was expelled of the European People's Party and in spite of being an associate founder of the Christian Democrat International is obliged to abandon the IDC by a PP change of statutes coaxed Parted and motivated, according to some European parties, by the agreements of the Basque Nationalist Party with ETA during 1997-1999.
ETA granted a truce from September of 1998 until December of 1999, in which the popular Government regrouped 135 prisoners of the organization and was interviewed fruitlessly with ETA, after what continued with a severe antiterrorist policy of harassment to ETA and to its environment for all the political, legal, social and international possible ways.
In January of 1999, Álvarez Cascos abandoned the office of general secretary of the party in favor of Javier Arenas.

In August 2003, Mariano Rajoy was appointed secretary general by Aznar and therefore became the party's candidate for the presidency in the Spanish general election, 2004, held three days after the terrorist March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings, and which Rajoy lost to a small victory by socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Opposition Party (2004-present)

The PP under Mariano Rajoy has been following a sensible opposition to the PSOE government since it lost the elections in 2004 due to the March 11 Madrid bombings. At a national level, its political strategy has followed two main axis, both linked to Spain's delicate regional politics. Firstly, opposing further devolution to Catalonia by means of the newly approved "Estatut". . Second, the opposition to political negotiations with the Basque terrorist organisation ETA.
The AVT or Association of Victims of Terrorism, is an ally of the Partido Popular, being capable of mobilising hundreds of thousands of citizens in demonstrations against government policies that in their opinion would result in political concessions to ETA, responsible for some 900 murders in Spain.

Notable members

★ Mariano Rajoy Brey (Party's President)

★ Rodrigo Rato (Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund)

★ Ángel Acebes Paniagua (Party's Secretary General)

★ Manuel Fraga Iribarne (Party's Founding President, former President of Galicia and Minister under the Francoist Regime)

★ José María Aznar López (Former Prime Minister, Party's Honorary President)

★ Eduardo Zaplana (Deputy Spokesman of People's Party in the Spanish Congress)

★ Esperanza Aguirre (President of the Community of Madrid)

★ Francisco Camps (President of the Community of Valencia)

★ Juan Vicente Herrera Campo (President of the Community of Castilla y León)

★ Pedro Sanz Alonso (President of the Community of La Rioja)

★ Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso (President of the Region of Murcia)

★ Alberto Ruiz Gallardón (Mayor of Madrid)

★ Teófila Martínez (Mayoress of Cadiz)

See also

★ Politics of Spain

★ List of political parties in Spain

★ People's Party of Spain in the United States

External links

★ Partido Popular official site

★ People's Party of Spain in the United States official site

★ Partido Popular en EEUU official site