February 13, 2003. Copyright, 2003, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Profile of Spanish prime minister JosŽ Mar’a Aznar
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, February 13, Graphic News:  Rare is the politician who owes his success in part to a lack of charisma, but JosŽ Mar’a Aznar is one of them. With his stiff moustache and dry demeanour, SpainŐs prime minister still looks every inch the tax inspector he used to be. Aznar even seems to know that he lacks flair: at an EU summit in March he finished addressing the European Parliament and, not realising his microphone was still on, told his wife: ŇWhat an incredibly boring speech I have just made.Ó 

With Aznar, however, the Spanish have come to prize content over style. Indeed, this was one of their hopes when his centre-right Popular Party ousted veteran Socialist Felipe Gonz‡lez in 1996. That victory presented Aznar, now 50, with the task of steering a wary Spain back to the right while maintaining a distance from the dark days under Franco. He set about cutting bureacracy and balancing the budget with a fiscal prudence that enabled Spain to qualify for the eurozone. His reward? A much bigger majority at the polls in March 2000.

AznarŐs competence has won him many admirers on the European right. Indeed, he has rarely come unstuck, though his popularity dipped in September after he left it a month before visiting Galicia in the wake of the Prestige oil tanker disaster. Greeted by angry demonstrators bearing his tar-splattered image, Aznar admitted that errors might have been made. 

In general, too, Spain has backed his Ňwar on terrorÓ, though comparing his countryŐs struggle against ETA terrorists with the U.S. war on Afghanistan was too much for some, with one Basque politican commenting that it was like Ňusing a missile to swat a fly.Ó Critics say Aznar is bent on destroying the Basque separatists as revenge for an ETA attempt on his life in 1995.

Though there is every chance Aznar might win again in 2004, he has ruled out a third term. At an EU summit in Sardinia in 2002 he proposed the creation of an EU president, and many believe he covets this role for himself. Whatever his personal ambitions, Aznar wants Spain back where it belongs on the international stage. To that end, he has made an ally of BritainŐs Tony Blair. Their emerging partnership, as seen in the recent initiative calling on EU members to back the United States on Iraq, should give Berlin and Paris pause for thought.
/ENDS