MADRID: Spanish opposition parties launched a fierce campaign Friday to end the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy after courts ruled that his Popular Party profited from a large kickbacks-for-contracts scheme.
The Socialist opposition announced a vote of no confidence against the prime minister with the backing of anti-establishment and left-wing parties, while the pro-business Ciudadanos (Citizens) — which had supported the conservative minority government until now — urged Rajoy to call a fresh election.
But Rajoy ruled out stepping down, saying he was committed to remaining in power until the end of his term, in 2020.
“All this is nonsense,” the 63-year old conservative politician told reporters in a televised press conference. He called the opposition’s move “opportunist,” and said the no-confidence vote “goes against the stability in Spain, damages the economic recovery, introduces uncertainty and goes against the interests of all citizens.”
The moves followed the conviction of 29 businesspeople and former Popular Party officials for crimes including fraud, tax evasion and money laundering over the 1999-2005 illegal scheme that, according to Thursday’s court decision, helped fund the ruling party.
The ruling triggered “social indignation” that has put Spain “in a situation of an extreme institutional crisis,” Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez said Friday.
“There is only one person responsible for the political disaffection,” he told reporters. “That person is called Mariano Rajoy.”
Parliamentary rules in Spain require a proposal of an alternative prime minister in a no-confidence vote.
Sanchez said he will call elections if he wins the vote. Meanwhile, the popular center-right Ciudadanos (Citizens) party urged Rajoy to call elections or threatened to push for a separate no confidence vote.
“We need a clean and strong government to confront the separatist defiance (in Catalonia),” its leader, Albert Rivera, tweeted.
No date has been set for the vote, but it could be as early as next week according to parliamentary rules. The Socialists will need at least 176 of the 350 votes in the national congress, where they only control 84 seats as opposed to 136 held by the Popular Party.
Although the Socialists have enlisted the backing of 71 leftwing and anti-establishment lawmakers, they would need the 32 extra votes of the pro-business Ciudadanos, which is reluctant to side with the left-wing or the Catalan separatists.
A successful motion of no confidence is unlikely at this stage, said Antonio Barroso, an analyst with the London-based Teneo Intelligence consultancy firm. “Opposition parties will likely engage in a blame game rather than effectively coordinate to get rid of Rajoy,” he said.
Friday’s political jockeying comes after a roller-coaster ride this week for Rajoy’s party, whose win on Wednesday of a key approval for the 2018 national budget had secured, in theory, enough breathing space for him to survive until the end of the term, in 2020.
But the setback came less than 24 hours later in the form of a 1,687-page ruling on the so-called Gurtel case, considered one of the gravest corruption episodes in Spain’s modern history.
The judges issued prison sentences totaling 351 years and a 245,000-euro fine ($ 287,000) for the conservative party in power, which the ruling describes as a “profit-seeking participant” in the scheme.
The verdict also considered that a network involving companies and party officials was established to arrange travel and organize events for PP in exchange for public contracts.
In some of the most damaging parts of the ruling, the judges said that PP ran a slush fund at least until 2008 and questioned the credibility of Rajoy when he denied knowing that the scheme was in place during a court hearing where the prime minister testified as a witness.
The convictions immediately triggered turmoil for Rajoy, who is combating separatist defiance in Catalonia and has for years defended his party against dozens of corruption allegations. Spain’s leading El Pais newspaper opened its Friday editorial calling Rajoy’s cabinet a “zombie government.”
The ruling party has said it will appeal the part of the verdict that found it was a profit-seeking participant in the scheme.
Rajoy, who has said he wants to run for a third term as prime minister after 2020, repeated on Friday that nobody in the current administration or in the party’s leadership was aware of any wrongdoing, and that the court ruling only fines his party without handing any criminal charges.
Spanish stocks plummeted on Friday as the political crisis unfolded, with the benchmark Ibex 35 index losing around 2 percent of its value by mid-afternoon.
Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy on the ropes over party graft case
Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy on the ropes over party graft case
- The Socialist opposition announced a vote of no confidence against the prime minister with the backing of anti-establishment and left-wing parties.
- The moves followed the conviction of 29 businesspeople and former Popular Party officials for crimes including fraud, tax evasion and money laundering.
Afghan Taliban’s treatment of women under scrutiny at UN rights meeting
- The Taliban say they respect rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law
- Taliban have barred girls from high school and women from universities and jobs
GENEVA: Afghanistan’s Taliban face criticism over their human rights record at a UN meeting on Monday, with Washington accusing them of systematically depriving women and girls of their human rights.
However, in an awkward first for the UN Human Rights Council, the concerned country’s current rulers will not be present because they are not recognized by the global body.
Afghanistan will instead be represented by an ambassador appointed by the previous US-backed government, which the Taliban ousted in 2021.
In a series of questions compiled in a UN document ahead of the review, the United States asked how authorities would hold perpetrators to account for abuses against civilians, “particularly women and girls who are being systematically deprived of their human rights“?
Britain and Belgium also raised questions about the Taliban’s treatment of women. In total, 76 countries have asked to take the floor at the meeting.
The Taliban say they respect rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law.
Since they swept back into power, most girls have been barred from high school and women from universities. The Taliban have also stopped most Afghan female staff from working at aid agencies, closed beauty salons, barred women from parks and curtailed travel for women in the absence of a male guardian.
Under the US system, states’ human rights records are subject to peer review in public meetings of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, resulting in a series of recommendations.
While non-binding, these can draw scrutiny of policies and add to pressure for reform.
The UN Human Rights Council, the only intergovernmental global body designed to protect human rights worldwide, can also mandate investigations whose evidence is sometimes used before national and international courts.
Indian students protest US envoy’s campus talk over Gaza war
- Student-led protest led to university canceling an event involving US ambassador
- Indian students say they stand in solidarity with students protest across US
NEW DELHI: Students at one of India’s most prominent universities gathered in protest over an event involving the US ambassador to New Delhi on Monday, as they stood up against American support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti was invited for a talk on US-India ties at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on Monday afternoon, which would take place amid protests on American campuses demanding their universities cut financial ties with Israel over its military offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
At the university’s convention center, over 100 students organized by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union protested the invitation of Garcetti, calling out his complicity “in the genocide Israel is currently doing in Palestine.”
JNUSU President Dhananjay told Arab News: “By calling such a person in the university … who is supporting the genocide, we want to tell them that JNU is not silent on this issue and we want to speak up.
“We are protesting against the US support for the genocide in Gaza committed by Israel.”
Hundreds of US college students have been arrested and suspended as peaceful demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israel spread across American campuses.
The student-led movement comes after nearly six months since Israel began its onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which Tel Aviv said was launched to stamp out the militant group Hamas.
Hundreds of thousands of housing units in the besieged territory have either been completely or partially destroyed, while the majority of public facilities, schools and hundreds of cultural landmarks have been demolished and continue to be targeted in intense bombing operations.
JNU student leaders said they stood in solidarity with the protesting students in the US.
“We are students, and we need to ask questions. If some atrocities are taking place and there are mindless killings going on, speaking out against this should be the responsibility of all sections of society,” Dhananjay said.
“The visuals that we see make us shiver and shake our conscience. If we don’t speak up, then I don’t think we have a right to be a social being.”
At the JNU campus on Monday, the student protest led to a cancellation of the event involving the US envoy.
“We feel happy that we forced the administration to cancel the talks by the ambassador,” JNUSU Vice President Avijit Ghosh told Arab News.
Despite India’s historic support for Palestine, the government has been mostly quiet in the wake of Israel’s deadly siege of Gaza.
When Indians went to the streets in the past months to protest and raise awareness on the atrocities unfolding in Gaza, their demonstrations were dispersed by police and campaigns stifled.
Members of Indian civil society have since come together to challenge their government’s links with Tel Aviv and break Delhi’s silence on Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, reflecting similar concerns that some university students also felt.
“The US is supporting Israel in the killing of Palestinian people in Gaza. It’s also suppressing students in its country who are raising voice against the genocide in Gaza,” Ghosh said.
“We are agitated that India is being a mute spectator and not taking a clear stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges US to speed up weapons deliveries
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that vital US weapons were starting to arrive in Ukraine in small amounts and that the process needed to move faster as advancing Russian forces were trying to take advantage.
Zelensky told a joint news conference in Kyiv alongside visiting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that the situation on the battlefield directly depended on the speed of ammunition supplies to Ukraine.
“Timely support for our army. Today I don’t see anything positive on this point yet. There are supplies, they have slightly begun, this process needs to be sped up,” he said.
Scotland’s Humza Yousaf quits in boost to Labour before UK vote
- Yousaf quit after a week of chaos triggered by his scrapping of a coalition agreement with Scotland’s Greens
- He then failed to secure enough support to survive a vote of no confidence against him expected later this week
LONDON: Scotland’s leader Humza Yousaf resigned on Monday, further opening the door to the UK opposition Labour Party regaining ground in its former Scottish heartlands during a national election expected to be held later this year.
Yousaf said he was quitting as head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) and first minister of Scotland’s devolved government after a week of chaos triggered by his scrapping of a coalition agreement with Scotland’s Greens.
He then failed to secure enough support to survive a vote of no confidence against him expected later this week.
Resigning little over a year after he replaced Nicola Sturgeon as first minister and SNP leader, Yousaf said it was time for someone else to lead Scotland.
“I’ve concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm,” Yousaf said, adding he would continue until a successor was chosen in an SNP leadership contest.
Yousaf abruptly ended a power-sharing agreement between his pro-independence SNP and the Green Party after a row over climate change targets. The SNP’s fortunes have faltered over a funding scandal and the resignation of Sturgeon as party leader last year. There has also been infighting over how progressive its pitch should be as it seeks to woo back voters.
Caught between defending the record of the coalition government and some nationalists’ demands to jettison gender recognition reforms and refocus on the economy, Yousaf was unable to strike a balance that would ensure his survival.
The SNP is losing popular support after 17 years of heading the Scottish government. Earlier this month, polling firm YouGov said the Labour Party had overtaken the SNP in voting intentions for a Westminster election for the first time in a decade.
Labour’s resurgence in Scotland adds to the challenge facing British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party which is lagging far behind Labour in UK-wide opinion polls.
The Scottish parliament now has 28 days to choose a new first minister before an election is forced, with former SNP leader John Swinney and Yousaf’s former leadership rival Kate Forbes seen as possible successors.
If the SNP is unable to find a new leader to command support in parliament, a Scottish election will be held. Yousaf, the first Muslim head of government in modern Western Europe, succeeded Sturgeon as first minister in March 2023. Once hugely popular, Sturgeon has been embroiled in a party funding scandal with her husband, who was charged this month with embezzling funds. Both deny wrongdoing.
Iran slams crackdown on US student protesters
- The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York and have since spread across the country
Tehran: Iran on Monday criticized a police crackdown in the United States against university students protesting against the rising death toll from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
“The American government has practically ignored its human rights obligations and respect for the principles of democracy that they profess,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
Tehran “does not at all accept the violent police and military behavior aimed at the academic atmosphere and student demands,” he said.
American universities have been rocked by pro-Palestinian demonstrations, triggering campus clashes with police and the arrest of some 275 people over the weekend.
The demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York and have since spread across the country.
In Iran, hundreds of people demonstrated in Tehran and other cities on Sunday in solidarity with the US demonstrations.
Some carried banners proclaiming “Death to Israel” and “Gazans are truly oppressed,” state media reported.
The Gaza war broke out after the October 7 attack by Palestinian militants on Israel which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Tehran backs Hamas, but has denied any direct involvement in the attack.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has since killed at least 34,488 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
“What we have seen in American universities in recent days is an awakening of the world community and world public opinion toward the Palestinian issue,” Kanani said.
“It is not possible to silence the loud voices of protesters against this crime and genocide through police action and violent policies.”
