Mariano Rajoy seeks to quell unrest in Spain's Popular party

Mariano Rajoy on Tuesday sought to snuff out simmering unrest inside Spain's ruling Popular party, telling party leaders that the country's economic recovery remained on track - which would eventually win back disgruntled voters.

The centre-right PP has been shaken by last month's heavy election defeat in the southern region of Andalucia, where it lost more than half a million voters to a new centrist party and to abstentions. The poor showing has raised fears inside the party that the PP could be ousted from regional and local governments in elections on May 24, and later this year at the national level.

The Andalucian result has also exposed political rifts inside the PP, a party that is usually known for its coherence of discipline. Senior leaders have in recent weeks clashed in public over who is to blame for the party's current malaise. Spanish media have also carried a string of reports suggesting there is growing unease with the leadership and campaign strategy of Mr Rajoy himself.

Shrugging off the tensions with a defiant speech at party headquarters in Madrid, the prime minister said: "I will not appeal for party unity, because this party is already united."

But in a thinly veiled reprimand to squabbling party leaders, Mr Rajoy urged his followers to "distinguish between what is important and what is not . . . and not be distracted by insignificant and irrelevant issues".

There was again no sign that Mr Rajoy is preparing to change his electoral strategy, which centres on the claim that his government managed to lift Spain out of recession and towards economic recovery.

"There is a lot of talk about change in Spain right now. But the real change in Spain happened at the end of 2011," he said, referring to the time when his government took office.

Mr Rajoy said his case was strengthened by the latest economic data. Figures released this week showed registered unemployment in March fell by 344,000 compared with the same month in 2014. The prime minister also pointed to Tuesday's auction of Spanish treasury bills, which allowed the government to borrow money at negative interest rates for the first time in the country's history.

Yet signs of a strengthening economic recovery have so far failed to impress voters. Polls show the PP would win barely 20 per cent of the vote if an election was held now - down from 44 per cent at the 2011 general election.

In Andalucia, Spain's most populous state, its share of the vote fell sharply from 41 per cent to just 27 per cent, with many PP supporters defecting to Ciudadanos, a relatively new centrist party that is emerging as the main electoral threat to Mr Rajoy's party.

Critics within the PP have urged the prime minister not to trust in the economic recovery alone, and to tackle the broader sense of discontent among Spanish voters - for example by being more forthright about political corruption or the social hardship suffered by many Spaniards.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation