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José María Aznar López (born February 25, 1953) was President of the Government (styled Presidente del Gobierno, i.e., Prime Minister) of Spain from May 5 1996 to April 17 2004, and was referred to in English as the Prime Minister of Spain.
Aznar was born in Madrid, but is of Basque descent. He is the grandson of Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, a former Basque nationalist turned Franco supporter. Manuel directed several newspapers and worked as a Spanish diplomat. As a teenager, José María declared himself to be an "independent Falangist".
He studied law at Universidad Complutense, and then became an inspector for the Spanish Tax Authority. He entered the conservative People's Alliance (Alianza Popular), and was elected Member of Parliament for La Rioja. He was later elected to the presidency of Autonomous Community of Castile-Leon. His success earned him the trust of the party leader Manuel Fraga, who appointed him as new party leader. Aznar reorganised Spanish conservatives into a new party, the People's Party (Partido Popular), moving to the political center by embracing economic liberalism without attacking the welfare state. Aznar moved the PP from the Conservative group in the European Parliament to the more centrist and Christian Democratic European People's Party.
On April 19, 1995, the Basque separatist group ETA made an assassination attempt on Aznar. He only survived the attack thanks to his armored car. One woman was killed as a result of the blast.
After a strong campaign against the corruption scandals of Felipe González's Socialists and against González's alleged involvement with the GAL – an illegal anti-terrorist group – Aznar's PP won the 1996 general election. Short of an absolute majority, Aznar had to reach agreements with other parties. After some negotiations, he became Prime Minister with the support of three regionalist parties: Convergence and Unity (Catalan), Basque Nationalist Party and the Canary Islands Coalition.
His first term was dominated by the economic agenda and the needs to negotiate with the nationalist parties -from which he was a firm opponent.
Aznar was re-elected with an absolute majority in the 2000 general election. The major interests of his administration were to improve the Spanish economy and to fight against local and national terrorism. Aznar and his party adopted a firm defense of the current wording of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, strongly opposing a plan for further Basque autonomy presented by Basque president Juan José Ibarretxe.
He actively supported US President George W. Bush and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In spite of the strong opposition (almost 90%) of public opinion and the media to the war, his People's Party conserved the popular support in the May 2003 local elections.
In January 2004 Aznar requested the dissolution of the Cortes and new elections, and announced he would not be seeking the prime minister's office again. He nominated Mariano Rajoy as the PP's candidate for the elections held in March 2004, which the PP lost. Aznar relinquished the prime minister's office when the new parliament approved a new government in April.
Aznar is a friend of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and Britain's Tony Blair. He is married to Ana Botella Serrano with two sons and a daughter. In 2004, Ana Botella was elected as a city councilor for Madrid in the PP list; she was included in the list at the same time as the mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon wanted to gain Aznar's support to lead the PP.
After leaving office, he presides over the FAES think tank for the Partido Popular. He has a contract with Georgetown University. He is also available as a public speaker (in English and Spanish).
List of Works
- "Libertad y solidaridad" (1991)
- "La España en que yo creo" (1995)
- "España: la segunda transición" (1995)
- "Ocho años de Gobierno. Una visión personal de España" (2004)
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