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| Europe |
| Spain: People's Party picks Pablo Casado as new leader |
| 2018-07-22 |
| [Al Jazeera] Spain's conservative People's Party (PP) has picked Pablo Casado to replace Mariano Rajoy as its leader after the former prime minister was removed in a no-confidence vote in June and stepped down as head of the party. Casado on Saturday beat challenger Soraya Saenz de Santamaria by 1,701 to 1,250 votes in a ballot of politicians and other senior PP members. The appointment of 37-year-old Casado, who has promised a generational revamp of the opposition party, will be seen as a lurch to the right for the PP. He has taken a hardline stance on the Catalan independence crisis, calling for the addition of offences such as illegally calling a referendum to the criminal code to boost Madrid's legal response to the secession threat. "Spanish democratic parties should not be able to include illegal goals in their statutes," Casado said in reference to the Catalan pro-independence parties on July 11, according to Catalan News Agency. "Dialogue doesn't work with those who want to break the law," he said earlier this week. |
| Posted by:Fred |