Mariano Rajoy

Mariano Rajoy Brey (Galician: [maɾiˈanʊ raˈʃoj], Spanish: [maˈɾjano raˈxoj]; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a vote of no confidence ousted his government. A member of the People's Party, he served as the president of the People's Party from 2004 to 2018.

Rajoy became prime minister in 2011 following the his party's landslide victory in that year's general election, becoming the sixth president of the Spanish Government since the restoration of democracy. The party lost its majority in the 2015 general election, but after that election ended in deadlock, a second election in 2016 enabled Rajoy to be reelected prime minister as head of a minority government. Rajoy was a minister under the José María Aznar administration, occupying different leading roles in different ministries between 1996 and 2003, and he also was the deputy prime minister between 2000 and 2003. He was the Leader of the Opposition between 2004 and 2011 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government.

Rajoy's first term was heavily marked by the Spanish financial crisis and oversaw a major restructuring of the Spanish financial system as well as a major labor reform. The financial crisis peaked with a bailout of the Spanish banking system in June 2012. unemployment in Spain peaked at 27% in 2012, which led to an initial drop of the People's Party in the polls, which was aggravated by the revelations of a series of corruption cases that seriously damaged the party's reputation. This, among other factors, led to a profound shift in the Spanish party system, with the rise of new political parties from the left and the right: Podemos and Citizens.

Rajoy also oversaw the 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis marked by the Catalan independence referendum of 2017 and the Catalan unilateral declaration of independence on 27 October 2017 that led to the imposition of direct rule in Catalonia. On 1 June 2018, Rajoy and his government was ousted by the opposition parties led by the opposition leader Pedro Sánchez, the secretary-general of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, which only held 84 seats at the time. On 5 June 2018, he announced his resignation as People's Party leader. He subsequently announced his resignation as the People's Party leader and left politics shortly after.

At 14 years and 146 days, Rajoy was the longest-serving Spanish politician in the Government of Spain since the Spanish transition to democracy, having held ministerial offices continuously from 1996 to 2004 and from 2011 to 2018

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