MADRID: Spain’s Socialist opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said yesterday he was stepping down after the party had its worst-ever election result on Sunday with an upstart rival leftist group grabbing 8 percent of the vote.
Recession-weary voters, unhappy with public-sector wage cuts, layoffs and corruption scandals also punished the ruling centre-right People’s Party.
The Socialists lost nine of their 23 seats in the European Parliament while the ruling centre-right People’s Party lost eight of its 24 seats. Together, the two parties that have dominated Spanish politics since the country returned to democracy in the 1970s, took less than 50 percent of the vote.
“It’s clear that we haven’t regained voters’ confidence,” Rubalcaba said in a televised news conference. “There has to be new leadership that takes on change.”
Rubalcaba — an ex-deputy prime minister, former interior minister and one-time chemistry professor - said he was disappointed Spaniards had turned to other leftist groups. The Socialists will choose new leaders at an extraordinary meeting on July 19 and 20, he said. The party has said it will hold its first open primary vote this year, before general elections due by early 2016.
Reuters
