The People's Party (Spanish: Partido Popular [paɾˈtiðo popuˈlaɾ] ) known mostly by its acronym, PP (Spanish: [peˈpe]), is a conservative and Christian democratic political party in Spain.
The People's Party was a 1989 re-foundation of People's Alliance (AP), a party led by former minister Manuel Fraga. It was founded in 1976 as alliance of post-Francoist proto-parties. The new party combined the conservative AP with several small Christian democratic and liberal parties (the party calling this fusion of views "the Reformist Centre"). In 2002, Manuel Fraga received the honorary title of "Founding Chairman". The party's youth organisation is New Generations of the People's Party of Spain (NNGG).
The PP is a member of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), and in the European Parliament its 16 MEPs sit in the EPP Group. The PP is also a member of the Centrist Democrat International and the International Democracy Union. The PP was also one of the founding organisations of the Budapest-based Robert Schuman Institute for Developing Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe.
On 24 May 2018, the National Court found that the PP profited from the illegal kickbacks-for-contracts scheme of the Gürtel affair, confirming the existence of an illegal accounting and financing structure that ran in parallel with the party's official one since the party's foundation in 1989; the court ruled that the PP helped establish "a genuine and effective system of institutional corruption through the manipulation of central, autonomous and local public procurement". This prompted a no confidence vote on Mariano Rajoy's government, which was brought down on 1 June 2018 in the first successful no-confidence motion since the Spanish transition to democracy. On 5 June 2018, Rajoy announced his resignation as PP leader.
On 21 July 2018, Pablo Casado was elected as the new leader of the PP. Under his leadership, the party was claimed to take a right-wing turn, including forging local alliances with the far-right Vox party. However, Casado later bet on breaking ties with Vox, and caused an unprecedented leadership crisis inside PP. After this there were rumors that Casado had ordered to spy on the popular president of the community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, for alleged irregularities, which collapsed popular support for PP according to opinion polls for future national elections, being resolved with the resignation of Casado and the appointment of the veteran Alberto Núñez Feijóo as the new leader, which improved the electoral expectations of the party. The party won the most votes in the 2023 general election, but it failed to secure a parliamentary majority.
Contents
History
Political genealogy
The party has its roots in the People's Alliance founded on 9 October 1976, by former Francoist minister Manuel Fraga. Although Fraga was a member of the reformist faction of the Franco regime, he supported an extremely gradual transition to democracy. However, he badly underestimated the public's distaste for Francoism. Additionally, while he attempted to convey a reformist image, the large number of former Francoists in the party led the public to perceive it as both reactionary and authoritarian. In the June 1977 general election, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote, putting it in fourth place.
In the months following the 1977 elections, dissent erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. Fraga had wanted from the beginning to brand the party as a traditional European conservative party, and wanted to move the AP toward the political centre in order to form a larger centre-right party. Fraga's wing won the struggle, prompting most of the disenchanted reactionaries to leave the party. The AP then joined with other moderate conservatives to form the Democratic Coalition (Coalición Democrática, CD).
It was hoped that this new coalition would capture the support of those who had voted for the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) in 1977, but who had become disenchanted with the Adolfo Suárez government. In the March 1979 general election, however, the CD received 6.1 percent of the vote, again finishing a distant fourth.
At the AP's Second Party Congress in December 1979, party leaders re-assessed their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had merely confused the voters, and they sought to emphasise the AP's independent identity. Fraga resumed control of the party, and the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP.
In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership. He was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general elections held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right. It became the major opposition party to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, securing 25.4 percent of the popular vote. Whereas the AP's parliamentary representation had dropped to nine seats in 1979, the party allied itself with the small Christian democratic People's Democratic Party (PDP) and won 106 seats in 1982.
Refoundation
On 4 September 1989, and at the suggestion of Fraga himself, José María Aznar (then premier of the Autonomous Region of Castile and León) was named the party's candidate for Prime Minister of Spain at the general elections. In April 1990, Aznar became chairman of the party. Fraga would later be named Founding Chairman of the People's Party.
The PP joined the European People's Party in 1991.
The PP became the largest party for the first time in 1996, and Aznar became Prime Minister with the support of the Basque Nationalist Party, the Catalan Convergence and Union and the Canarian Coalition. In the 2000 elections, the PP gained an absolute majority.
Known to have a strong Atlanticist ideology, the People's Party fostered stronger ties to the United States.
In August 2003, Mariano Rajoy was appointed Secretary General by Aznar. Thus, Rajoy became the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 2004 general election, held three days after the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, and which Rajoy lost by a big margin to Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
The PP under Mariano Rajoy opposed the PSOE government after the PP lost the general election in 2004, arguing that this victory was influenced by the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004. At a national level, its political strategy has followed two main axes, both linked to Spain's delicate regional politics: Firstly, opposing further administrative devolution to Catalonia by means of the newly approved "Estatut" or Statute of Catalonia that lays out the powers of the Catalan regional government. Secondly, opposition to political negotiations with the Basque separatist organisation ETA.
The People's Party has supported the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) with respect to the Government's actions concerning ETA's ceasefire, and was able to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people in demonstrations against Government policies that, in its opinion, would result in political concessions to ETA. Nevertheless, the end of the ceasefire in December 2006 ended prospects for government negotiations with ETA.
Ideology
Once described as the main liberal-conservative party of Spain, political scientists Vít Hlousek and Lubomír Kopeček have observed that under the leadership of José María Aznar the party evolved into a conservative party with elements of Christian democracy and economic liberalism. It was described as Christian humanist in 2003 and conservative liberal in 1998 and 2010. On the other hand, sociologist Vicenç Navarro considered the PP a conservative-neoliberal coalition with a neoliberal economic policy.
The party supports the regional structure in autonomous communities enshrined in the Constitution of 1978, as well as the constitutional monarchy.
When Spain first legalised same-sex marriage in 2005, the party was opposed to the same-sex marriage law. It did, however, support marriage-like civil unions for same-sex couples. The party organised demonstrations against the same-sex marriage law. After the law was deemed constitutional in 2012, the PP government announced that it would no longer seek the repeal of same-sex marriage. While the party has a strong socially conservative faction, some politicians from the People's Party now support same-sex marriage. Some PP regional governments have introduced legislation against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. PP officials have denied the scientific consensus on climate change.
Illegal financing
In early 2009, a scandal involving several senior members of the party came to the public's attention. The Gürtel affair resulted in the resignation of the party's treasurer Luis Bárcenas in 2009. The case against him was dropped in July 2011 but reopened the following year.
The leader of the party in the Valencia region, Francisco Camps, stepped down in July 2011 because of a pending trial. He was accused of having received gifts in exchange for public contracts, but was found to be not guilty.
Bárcenas affair
In January 2013, the judges' investigation discovered an account in Switzerland controlled by Luis Bárcenas with €22 million euros and another €4.5 million in the United States. Allegations appeared in the media regarding the existence of supposed illegal funds of the PP, used for the undercover monthly payments to VIPs in the party from 1989 to 2009, including the former government presidents, Mariano Rajoy and José María Aznar. The existence of such illicit funding has been denied by the PP.
Lezo Case
Judge Eloy Velasco instructing the Lezo Case in the Spanish National Court is investigating former President of the Community of Madrid, Ignacio González, former Work Minister, Eduardo Zaplana, Vice-councilor of the presidency of the Community of Madrid and implicated in Gürtel affair Alberto López Viejo, businessmen Juan Miguel Villar Mir (OHL) and PricewaterhouseCoopers among others for embezzlement of public funds to presumably finance People's Party (PP) campaigns in the Community of Madrid.
Organization
Leadership
Andalusia: Juan Manuel Moreno (since 2014)
Aragon: Jorge Azcón (since 2022)
Asturias: Álvaro Queipo (since 2023)
Balearic Islands: Marga Prohens (since 2021)
Basque Country: Carlos Iturgaiz (since 2020)
Canary Islands: Manuel Domínguez (since 2022)
Cantabria: María José Sáenz (since 2017)
Castile and León: Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (since 2017)
Castilla-La Mancha: Francisco Núñez (since 2018)
Catalonia: Alejandro Fernández (since 2018)
Ceuta: Juan Jesús Vivas (since 2009)
Community of Madrid: Isabel Díaz Ayuso (since 2022)
Extremadura: María Guardiola (since 2022)
Galicia: Alfonso Rueda (since 2022)
La Rioja: Gonzalo Capellán (since 2022)
Melilla: Juan José Imbroda (since 2000)
Murcia: Fernando López (since 2017)
Navarre: Javier García (since 2022)
Valencian Community: Carlos Mazón (since 2021)