Spain voted a new prime minister back on the 20th of November. As it was generally expected Popular Party (PP) accomplished a crushing victory over the ruling socialists, obtaining more than 10.7 million votes and earning 186 out of the 350 Parliament seats. It took Mariano Rajoy of PP three attempts to become Spain’s Prime Minister and make it into Moncloa – local equivalent of the White House. His victory improved José Maria Azner’s majority 12 years ago by almost half a million votes and three seats, making it a historic result.

Spain’s new Prime Minister shall have to face the challenge of managing the worst economic situation in recent decades and perform intended reforms to meet the deficit targets set by Brussels. So large is PP’s majority in the Parliament Rajoy shall not have to rely on alliances and support from other groups when addressing anti-crisis measures.

During the campaign Rajoy refused to reveal what these anti-crisis measures were specifically going to be. This opacity was largely criticized by the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) candidate Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba during the whole campaign. Rubalcaba despite his attempts to “translate” Rajoy’s election manifesto into plain ‘english’ terms, understandable by an average Joe, had failed to make a point.

One of the biggest reasons why the Spaniards had not trusted Rubalcaba to become their Prime Minister was that PSOE candidate was part of existing government and if he could manage to improve the situation he would have already have done so by now.

Full campaign coverage is available at Corbis.com and my Photoshelter.com archive. If you’re interested in publishing any of those images or have an assignment for me please get in touch with me at ervin dot sarkisov at gmail dot com.