Jose María Aznar

Jose María Aznar López , (Madrid 1953 -), is a Spanish Politician , former president of the Popular party and president of the Government during two mandates (1996 - 2000 and 2000 - 2004) of the May 5th 1996 with the April 17th 2004.

Biography

Aznar was born with Madrid the February 25th 1953. It is wire of Handbook Aznar Acedo, journalist known, and small son of Handbook Aznar Zubigaray, diplomat and journalist close to the Spanish dictator Franco. The origins of its family go back to the counts d' Aznar, of noble of the north of Spain having played a big role in the Reconquista.

It made its secondary studies with the Colegio del Pilar of Madrid. He was member in his youth of the Frente de Estudiantes Sindicalistas (FES) , an association of students depending on the Spanish Phalange.

In 1975 it finishes its studies of right to the Université Complutense of Madrid. In 1976 it enters to the tax inspectorate. In 1977, it Marie with Anna Botella.

In 1979, it joined the popular Alliance, the post-pro-Franco conservative party of Manuel Fraga. He is elected appointed of Rioja then becomes president of the autonomous community of Castille-and-León.

In 1987, Manuel Fraga makes the new president of Popular Alliance of it. Aznar renames the party in Popular party (PP) and makes of it a liberal party of right-hand side, whose electorate includes/understands since the liberal center-right until the sectors plus close reactionaries to Francoism. With the the European Parliament, PP leaves the preserving group for that of the Christian-Democrats (PP is currently member of the group of the European Popular party).

In 1993, it fails of accuracy the legislative elections against the Socialist party of Felipe González.

The April 19th 1995, it survives an bomb attack of the Basque terrorist group ETA.

The May 5th 1996, González convenes anticipated elections, and the Popular party of Aznar gains them of a small majority. To control, it must call upon the supplement of Basque, Catalan and Canarian parties regionalistic.

In 2000 it is re-elected and obtains the absolute majority with the the Cortes.

During its two mandates, official figures of the unemployment, which had largely exceeded 20  before; % of the active population, decrease to the neighborhoods by 11%. Instigated as of the entry of the country in the EEC, the Spanish economy knows a growth without precedent since the years 1960, in what some, in the financial circle, call the Spanish Economic miracle. This one is accompanied however by a rise of the prices for European adjustment, by a strong precarisation of the job market and an unrestrained real estate speculation.

On the international plan, it accentuates the bringing together with the the United States and with personal capacity maintains excellent relations - including personal - with George W. Bush which it supports against its public opinion at the time of the Guerre in Iraq in March 2003. It also supports, at the sides of the president étasunien, the coup d'etat in Venezuela of April 2002 against the president Hugo Chávez. The relations of Spain with Morocco are degraded throughout its mandate (crisis of the small island Perejil in 2003).

The government of Aznar is also characterized by her intransigence with respect to the terrorist organization ETA. September 16th, 1998 the ETA declares a truce. The government then makes contact in several recoveries with the organization, but the talks fail and the ETA declares the truce finished on November 28th, 1999. The rupture of the truce is followed of a resumption of the attacks which touch a paroxysm then nevertheless personalities relatively close to the separatist cause or moderated are targeted, such as for example Jose Ramón Recalde. The government for its part engages an intensification of the antiterrorist police operations (which aim also other clandestine groups as GRAPO) with a relative success since it will lead to a multiplication of the arrests in the mediums close to separatist mobility and to a relative embrittlement of ETA, without however that this one never gives sign of renouncement. A pact signed with the principal party of opposition, the socialist party, on December 12th, 2000, built a broad face against ETA, supported without hardly of nuances by almost the whole of the national press. Extremely of this apparent unanimity, in which some see a deficit of freedom of expression and freedom of press, the government promulgates on June 27th, 2002 a Loi on the political parties which, while putting at the round of applause, at the end of the article 8c, the parties not condemning explicitly terrorism, poses the bases of the dissolution of Batasuna, the political arm of the ETA. This one will intervene on August 26th, 2002 by decision of the judge Baltasar Garzón. The great majority of the Spanish company, tired of terrorism, will react positively or passively to this dissolution, the imprisonment of some of the leaders of Batasuna and to the censure sine die of the daily newspaper Egin, regarded as a window hitherto legal of Basque terrorism.

Having announced that it would not carry out more than two mandates, it chooses Mariano Rajoy like candidate for his succession with the elections of March 14th, 2004. In spite of its decision to support the invasion of Iraq, against the opinion of more than 80  % of Spanish, his candidate is given victorious of a short advance by almost the whole of the surveys and the media until the March 11th 2004, day of the attacks of Madrid. The hasty and peremptory designation of ETA like person in charge of the attacks (various declarations of the Minister of Interior Department, Ángel Acebes, allotted until on Saturday, March 13 at the beginning of the afternoon the attacks with ETA) is perceived by the Spanish opinion like an attempt at handling. In three days the tendency of the surveys is reversed and the Socialists of PSOE of Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero gain the elections.