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Spain's PP party names candidates for Madrid mayor, community president

Xinhua, March 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Spain's Popular Party (PP) has named two candidates to run for the mayor of Madrid and the President of the Community of Madrid in the forthcoming local and regional elections which will be held at the end of May.

Esperanza Aguirre, the former President of the Community of Madrid and Cristiana Cifuentes, the current Government Delegate for the region, were named by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to run for the two posts after being chosen by the PP Executive Committee on Friday.

The decision means that Ignacio Gonzalez, who is the current President of the Community of Madrid, will not have the chance to defend the position he inherited when 63-year-old Aguirre stepped down from the position, announcing she was retiring from active politics in September 2012.

That retirement has been brief, with Aguirre rarely out of the headlines in the past two and a half years and Gonzalez complained on Friday that he had been the victim of an orchestrated campaign against him, as stories regarding irregularities surrounding a flat he had bought in Marbella had surfaced in the press earlier in the week.

Both Aguirre and Cifuentes are considered to be hardliners on the right of the PP and by naming the duo Rajoy will hope to mobilize the core support as his party looks to defend their control of the city and the region.

It is thought that dissatisfaction among PP voters could see many opt to stay at home in May rather than go out to vote and with Aguirre and Cifuentes as candidates many will now go to the polls.

The flip side of this coin is that the duo are hugely unpopular with the left wing and their presence could also serve to motivate many potential voters for the Socialist Party and Podemos to try and defeat them in what now appears to be an election with battle lines very clearly drawn. Endit