José María Aznar

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**José María Aznar**

Term of office	May 5, 1996 – April 17, 2004
Preceded by	Felipe González
Succeeded by	José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Date of birth	February 25, 1953
Place of birth	Madrid
Spouse	Ana Botella
Political party	Partido Popular

José María Aznar López (born February 25, 1953, in Madrid, Spain) was Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004.

1 Early times
2 Politician
3 Prime Minister
4 Published works
5 See also
6 Reference
7 External links

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Early times

He is the grandson of Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, a prominent journalist during the Franco era. As a teenager, José María declared himself to be an "independent Falangist" ^[1].

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Politician

He studied law at the Complutense University, graduating in 1975, becoming a Spanish Tax Authority inspector in 1976. In 1977 he married Ana Botella. He joined the conservative People's Alliance (AP) in January 1979, months after his wife. In March he became the Secretary general of the party in La Rioja until 1980. In February 1981 he joined the AP's National executive committee. He became assistant Secretary general in February 1982, and then, on October 26, 1982 he was elected to the Parliament, representing Ávila. On June 22, 1985 he was elected to the presidency of the AP in Castile-Leon. On December 2, 1986 AP leader Manuel Fraga, resigned after fierce internal party fighting in the 5 months since their failure to dent the majority of the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). Aznar was not considered senior enough to be a possible successor, and gave his support to the more right wing Miguel Herrero who lost to Fraga's choice Antonio Hernández Mancha, resulting in Aznar losing his assistant secretary general post. On June 10, 1987, having resigned his parliamentary seat, he was elected to the Cortes of Castile-León, where he was made Governor of this Autonomous Region. Two years laterPopular (People's Party, or PP). With Fraga focused in the pre, Aznar was voted by the National executive Committee to be the new leader of his party, re-founded as Partido sidence of Galicia, Aznar confirmed his leadership of the PP at their X National Congress at the emd of March 1990. In November the PP moved from the Conservative group in the European Parliament to the more centrist and Christian Democratic European People's Party. On June 6, 1993 the PP again lost the general election, but improved on their previous performance with 34.8% of the vote, with PSOE losing its absolute majority and needing to form a pact with smaller parties in order to continue ruling. The result was a disappointment as the polls had predicted a PP victory. They did well in the 1994 European and 1995 local elections. On April 19, 1995, the Basque terrorist group ETA attempted to assassinate him.

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Prime Minister

After a hard fought campaign against corruption scandals, Aznar won the March 3, 1996 general election with 37.6% of the vote. With 154 of the 350 seats (PSOE had 141) Aznar had to reach agreements with three nationalist parties: Convergence and Unity (Catalan), the Basque Nationalist Party and the Canary Islands Coalition, in order to govern. He was voted President with 181 votes in the Cortes general on May 4 and sworn in the next day by King Juan Carlos I.

His first term was dominated by the deep economic reforms and the need to negotiate with these nationalist parties.

The Partido Popular won again the upcoming elections with landslide victory mainly due to the success of its economic policies. In the second term, the major interests of his administration were to further improve the Spanish economy and to fight against internal terrorism. His new majority allowed him to change his attitude towards nationalists, confronting them instead of negotiating.

Aznar and his party defended a strict wording of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, strongly opposing a plan for further Basque autonomy presented by Basque president Juan José Ibarretxe and any possibility of talking wih the democratic parties of the opposition in this issue.

In the last years there were several issues that polarized Spanish and European opinion for or against him:

the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: He actively supported US President George W. Bush and Tony Blair in spite of a 89% public opposition and many protests and rallies that gathered millions of people throughout Spain. He didn't discuss or vote in the Spanish Congress to support for the war and weeks before the 2004 National Elections he continued justifying the invasion by saying that there were weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere in Iraq. He furthermore argued that the opposition parties weren't firmly against terrorism, and claimed that oil would going to be cheaper for the Spanish people after helping Bush and Blair.

how his government dealt with the ecological catastrophe of the sinking of the Prestige tanker

the Yak-42 case: a Ukrainian plane carrying Spanish troops home from Afghanistan crashed over Turkey. The causes of the crash and the generalized misidentification of the corpses were discuted.

the escalation of real estate prices.

the refusal of talks with the Basque democratic parties that condemned the terrorists' acts by saying that they were part of the strategy of terrorist group ETA.

In January 2004 Aznar called new elections, having already announced he would not be seeking the prime minister's office again. He nominated Mariano Rajoy as the PP's candidate for elections held in March 2004, which the PP, although it had been leading in the polls, lost three days after the Madrid train bombings. In the last weeks his popularity was at the lowest point.

Based on the first intelligence reports, his government strongly blamed the attack on ETA rather than a terrorist islamic group connected with Al-Qaeda. Contrary alleged evidences found the days after along with agitation and harassment allegedly led by political opponents brought to the polls millions of voters to change the social and political direction of the country, leaving PP as the second party after José Luis Zapatero's PSOE.

José María Aznar, speaking at Georgetown University, September 21, 2004.

After leaving office, he has presided over the FAES think tank, which is associated with the PP. He is a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown University. After a 2005 reform, promoted by the current Prime Minister of Spain Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero, admitted former prime ministers into the Spanish Council of State, a consultative organ, he has been the only one so far to become a member. The other former Presidents have refused the honor to avoid using that Council of State for political parties and own purposes.

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