Hola, Prime Minister Rajoy! Adiós, Spanish hope for recovery!

As expected, the conservative, Christian-democratic Partido Popular (PP) won a landslide victory in Sunday's nationwide parliamentary election in Spain. (Henry Chu, Spain's center-right party defeats ruling Socialists in election Los Angeles Times 11/20/2011) PP leader Mariano Rajoy will take over as the new Prime Minister, who is called Presidente in Spanish but which is normally translated into English as Prime Minister, presumably to emphasize his role as head of government; the King is head of state in Spain. The PP has an absolute majority in Parliament, so they don't need coalition partners.

Incoming Spanish Prime Minister Marino Rajoy (PP)

Rajoy has pledged to intensify the already-disastrous austerity measure put in place by the outgoing Socialist government.

Eurovision has a good summary of the Prime Ministership of Zapatero, who sadly will go down in history as one of the minor partners in Angela Merkel's and Nicolas Sarkozy's destruction of the euro and the European Union. I say sadly, because he accomplished some really important things before he foolishly decided to transform his government into a collector for the big banks, which pushed official unemployment to over 21% now. From Zapatero's seven years in Madrid 11/20/2011:



For the Socialist Party (PSOE), it was the worst electoral result since the restoration of democracy in 1978.(José Manuel Romero, La crisis da el poder absoluto al PP El País 20.11.2011.)

Tags: austerity economics, mariano rojoy, spain, zapatero