Word: zapatero
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Popular Party leader and election opponent Mariano Rajoy immediately suspended all campaign activities, and the Spanish parliament convened a special session late on Friday afternoon to express its unanimous condemnation of the assassination. Socialist spokesperson Diego Lopez Garrido confirmed that Sunday's election would be held as planned, assuring the press that "no matter how hard ETA tries," it will not impede "Spaniards' freedom of expression." Yet the question of whether - and how - the killing might affect the vote was on everyone's mind...
Spain's electoral campaign has never been a decorous affair, but Monday night's nationally televised electoral debate between Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Popular Party (PP) candidate Mariano Rajoy was often downright nasty. For long stretches, it sank into a cacophony of insults, interruptions, and petty squabbling over who was the bigger liar. Yet in the end, Zapatero offered more concrete prescriptions for the next legislature, and that, it seems, persuaded the Spanish public to deem him the victor of this second debate, just as it had after the first, held a week...
...spokesperson and a candidate for parliamentary reelection. "Their economic policies have been very risky, very irresponsible, and Spanish families are paying the price." The PP has also linked economic woes to what it believes is widespread anxiety over Spain's burgeoning immigrant population. During Monday's debate, Rajoy blamed Zapatero for 2005's mass regularization of immigrants, arguing that they "couldn't all fit." Borrowing a page from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Rajoy also repeated his party's call for greater "control and order" of immigrants, promising, if elected, to require them to sign a contract agreeing to conform...
...Both parties continue to play up their signature issues as well. The Socialists have made their social initiatives - legalizing gay marriage, easing divorce laws, requiring gender parity in political parties, and creating a comprehensive law against domestic violence - a primary talking point, and have promised, as Zapatero said in Monday's debate, to work for "a definitive equality between men and women" that would include equitable salaries. For its part, the Popular Party has carried on its longstanding attack on the government for threatening Spain's territorial integrity by granting greater autonomy to regional governments and for negotiating with...
...time, this rhetorical tactic helped the Popular Party weaken support for Zapatero's government, says José Ramón Montero, political scientist at Madrid's Autonomous University. "But the Socialists have become much more effective in communicating. The Popular Party is still continuing its strategy of crispación - antagonism - but for most Spaniards, that phase has passed...