First term (1996–2000) , acting President of the Government, receives José María Aznar after the
1996 Spanish general election, prior to his appointment as
President of the Government of Spain Aznar's government has been described as the first conservative government since 1983, or since the death of Francisco Franco. The Aznar Government maintained the commitment of the previous government to join the
European Union's single currency and showed itself willing to take political risks in order to meet the requirements for membership. Aznar also announced the sale early in 1997 of the nation's remaining minority stake (
golden shares) in the
Telefónica telecommunications company and the petroleum group
Repsol. This marked the beginning of a period of privatizations after the previous
PSOE government had nationalized parts of the economy.
Second term (2000–2004) Spanish voters reelected Aznar in the
2000 general election with an outright majority. The PP obtained 44.5% of the vote and 183 seats. The Spanish electorate's participation was the lowest for a general election in Spain in the post-Franco era. ,
Blair,
Bush, and Aznar in the
Azores, March 2003 After six years of relative political calm, when political debate was dominated by a consensus within the ruling party on economics, regional nationalism, and terrorism, several issues arose which polarized Spanish public opinion. Like UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair, Aznar actively supported the United States'
war on terrorism, despite public opposition. Aznar met with Bush in a private meeting before the
2003 invasion of Iraq to discuss the situation in the UN Security Council.
El País leaked a
partial transcript of the meeting. The government's handling of the wreckage of the Greek
Prestige tanker near the Spanish coast, which resulted in a major ecological disaster, also became a divisive issue. He actively encouraged and supported the Bush administration's foreign policy and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He defended it on the basis of secret intelligence allegedly containing evidence of the Iraqi government's nuclear proliferation. On 30 January 2003, Aznar signed
The letter of the eight supporting
US. policy on Iraq. The majority of the Spanish population, including some PP members, were against the war. Spain's major cities were the scene of the largest street demonstrations ever seen in the country as a result of the government's participation in the invasion. Aznar lost some support from those who had voted for the PP in 2000. On a live TV interview aired on the public station while demonstrations were taking place in the streets, he asked the Spanish people to take his word assuring there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, of which he had evidence. This is now regarded as incorrect. On the economic front, the government pursued the
privatization of public enterprises and focused its attention on
debt reduction. Investment in research was drastically reduced, and large cuts were also made in social spending.
Social housing construction fell by over 30%, and households went into debt in response to the sharp rise in the price of building land. In January 2004 Aznar called a general election and designated his successor as candidate,
Mariano Rajoy, sticking to a pledge of not seeking office for a third term. Despite political tensions, polls suggested that the People's Party was set to win a third consecutive election on the strength of the economy. An opinion poll carried out by the government-run CIS (which had estimated that 92% of the Spanish people did not support the War in Iraq) in February 2004 estimated that the PP would win an election with 42.2% of the vote while the
PSOE would only get 35.5%.
Madrid train bombings and end of term Three days before the
2004 general election, 10 bombs killed 191 people in the
11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. Initially, the government and the opposition stated publicly that it was possible the bombings may have been the work of
ETA. However, the PP government continued to blame ETA even after evidence that the attacks may have been the work of an Islamist group emerged, having the minister of foreign affairs,
Ana Palacio, instruct all Spanish diplomats to place the blame on ETA at every opportunity. The public perception that the government hid information from the general population gave rise to a public outcry. Two days after the Atocha bombings, demonstrations took place across Spain demanding news from the investigation, where chants such as "We want the truth before we vote" and "Who is responsible?" were heard. Three days after the train bombings, the opposition
PSOE won the elections. The subsequent investigations held by a Parliamentary Committee were characterized by bitter partisan exchanges between the different political parties, with dispute over who may have been responsible for the bombings. Aznar appeared before the Committee in November 2004 and declared his belief that the authors of the bombings were not to be found "in faraway deserts or remote mountains." Aznar said in 2006 that he thought that the attacks were not exclusively perpetrated by Islamists. ==After 2004==