Oh Mariano, why won’t your women just leave you alone and let you get on with your job of telling the world how bad Spain’s economy is under a PSOE government while trying not to look too happy about how the nation is going down the gutter.

But no, they just can’t let a chance to question your manhood slip by.  First it was Nebrera’s adéu, and now it is Esperanza Aguirre’s turn to step out of line.  The president of the Comunidad de Madrid is once again putting Rajoy’s credibility as head of the Partido Popular to the test.  The subject of the dispute is none other than the control of Caja Madrid, Spain’s fourth largest financial institution.

While openly saying that it is not any of his business, all the political pages, even from universes as juxtaposed as those of El Mundo and El País, put down on the record that Rajoy wants the former director of the IMF and Spain’s Economic Minister Rodrigo Rato to head the bank.  For her part, Aguirre, while also saying that it is the bank’s board that will choose, is dead set on Ignacio González, vice president of the Comunidad de Madrid and her “right hand”, to be in charge of the big green bear.

Besides all the bullion at stake, the fight for control of Caja Madrid is also the third serious attempt by Aguirre to challenge the authority of her nominal boss and indicates that her aspirations to usurp Rajoy and lead the party out from the wilderness of opposition are still very much alive.  With the PP being rocked by scandals and president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero still leading Rajoy in the head-to-head polls, Aguirre sees that she can not only keep the bank under her tight control with González behind the desk but also deal a heavy political blow to the more moderate Rajoy.

Previously on …

Rajoy has had to survive two direct challenges from Aguirre to be the head honcho of the PP ranch since he lost his second election to Zapatero.

The first occurred on the night of the March 9, 2008 elections.  Aguirre, along with everyone else on the Iberian peninsula, knew that Rajoy was destined to be defeated and had concocted a plot to turn the loss of her party into a huge coup for herself.  Her plan was to be the first to take the balcony in front of the PP headquarters to address the throng of disheartened PP supporters who had turned out in front of the party headquarters to hope for the best and expect the worst of the election results.  Rajoy got whiff of Aguirre’s scheme to pick up the fallen standard bearing the seagull of liberty and foiled her plans by getting out on the balcony first to receive the sympathetic applauses.

Rajoy was able to save face by the fact that, although he lost, ZP did not whip him.  Again, politics as expectations, if you do better than what common wisdom predicted, then you win even if you lose.

Aguirre, not to give up so soon, immediately moved to plan B and began maneuvering to position herself as an alternative candidate for the PP presidency of the party that would be decided in the party congress in June 2008 in Valencia.  Rajoy once again was able to outflank Aguirre, not one to shy away from leopard-patterned apparel, by first getting the public support of the other PP heavyweights and then inviting anyone who wanted to leave the party to go ahead and do so in a not-so-veiled reference to the pretender to his dented crown.

The other bear

There is something about Rajoy that lulls his adversaries into consistently underestimating him.  Maybe it is because his entire look screams “night manager” or “my second-favorite uncle”.  Perhaps it is because he dyes his beard while letting his hair go gray, perhaps not.

The truth is that Rajoy, despite his soft and, more often than not, pained appearance, is by all accounts a tough beast to bring down.  He is large and hairy, and, yes, even kind of cuddly.  He would not be unfairly described as a bear himself.  Not a teddy bear though.  No, Rajoy is a grizzly, or at least a brown bear imported to the Pyrenees from Slovenia.

So far Rajoy has been quite masterful in dispensing with his adversaries within his own party.  Now he is in yet another standoff, and only time will tell whether the bear or the leopard will come away with the prize.

Photos: Chesi – Fotos CC