Spain has a new prime minister after a parliamentary vote Friday led to the ousting of incumbent Mariano Rajoy.
Speaking to the Spanish parliament just before the vote, Rajoy said he would accept the result and wanted to be the first to congratulate the leader of the opposition Socialist Party, Pedro Sanchez, as his successor.
A long-running corruption trial — known as the Gurtel case — found dozens of people linked to Rajoy’s governing People’s Party (PP) guilty of benefiting from illegal kickbacks. That prompted Sanchez to push for a vote of no-confidence against Rajoy.
Sanchez won the vote Friday after securing the backing of six smaller parties, including that of the Basque Nationalist Party and two parties that support Catalan independence. The left-of-center Podemos party also said it would back Sanchez.
Ciudadanos, a right-of-center party that enjoys strong support in Spain, refused to back the new coalition.
Market reaction has been mildly supportive. The Spanish IBEX 35, which accounts for the country’s largest listed companies, was higher by almost 2 percent on Friday morning.
The euro was largely flat against the dollar while Spanish bond prices ticked higher. Spain’s political upheaval is viewed by investors as more favorable than neighboring Italy’s as most Spanish parties cast themselves as pro-European.
The socialist leader Sanchez has promised to stick to a budget recently approved by parliament and with pure control of only 84 of 350 seats, enacting change is seen as difficult. The next general election in Spain is due to take place by mid-2020.
