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Spain’s hard-left deputy PM to step down to run as Madrid leader

Pablo Iglesias, leader of the hard-left party Podemos and a deputy prime minister in Spain's ruling coalition, said Monday he was stepping down from the government to run as head of the Madrid region.

Published: 15 March 2021 13:09 CET
Spain's hard-left deputy PM to step down to run as Madrid leader
Photo: Pablo Blazquez/AFP/POOL

“I have informed (Prime Minister) Pedro Sanchez about my decision to leave my post in government when the campaign begins,” he said in a video message posted on social media referring to elections scheduled for May 4.

The pony-tailed former professor of political science took up his position as one of four deputy prime ministers in January 2020, leading Podemos into the government for the first time since it was formed in 2014.

His surprise announcement came a day after a regional court confirmed the snap poll, which was called last week after the collapse of the region’s ruling coalition, which groups the rightwing Popular Party (PP) and the centre-right Ciudadanos.

The decision to call early elections was taken by the PP’s Isabel Diaz Ayuso, who resigned as Madrid’s regional leader on Wednesday, breaking the coalition deal with Ciudadanos and raising questions as to whether other regional rightwing tie-ups would follow suit.

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PROTESTS

Thousands rally in Madrid to defend public healthcare

Thousands of demonstrators rallied in Madrid on Sunday in defence of the local public health system, accusing the right-wing regional government of trying to destroy it with spending cuts.

Published: 19 May 2024 17:04 CEST
Thousands rally in Madrid to defend public healthcare

On a sunny afternoon, huge crowds turned out at four points across the capital and marched on city hall in a mass protest under the slogan: “Madrid rallies in support of public healthcare and against the plan to destroy primary care services.”

Some 18,000 people took part in the demonstration, the government said, while organisers put the turnout at about 200,000.

Demonstrators filled the central Plaza Cibeles area, chanting and waving flags. Many carried homemade signs with messages such as, “The right to health is a human right. Defend the health service.”

One demonstrator sported a huge model of Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the right-wing leader of the Madrid regional government and a fierce critic of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government, with a Pinocchio-like nose attached.

“We are once again defending our public health as the heart of our welfare state and of our society. What is being defended here today is democracy and the health of our citizens,” Health Minister Monica Garcia, a former hospital anaesthesiologist, told reporters.

Unions and left-wing parties complain about long waiting lists and a shortage of staff in health centres, forcing patients to overwhelm hospital emergency departments.

Diaz Ayuso’s opponents say her administration spends the least amount per capita on primary health care of any Spanish region even though it has the highest per capita income.

Many government critics believe the conservatives are dismantling the system. Madrid’s regional government denies the accusation.

Spain has a hybrid healthcare system but the public sector is larger than the private one and is considered a basic pillar of the state.

The governments of the regional autonomous communities are responsible for a major part of the health budget as part of Spain’s devolved political system.

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