PSOE undecided on electing new leader

 

Following the weekend's regional and local election results, the punished PSOE party are reportedly undecided with regards to choosing their replacement for their current leader and Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who took responsibility for their heavy losses.

The current favourites are Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, a party veteran, and Defence Minister Carme Chacon, a young, Catalan politician and the country's first female Defence minister.

The party is currently split on deciding whether to persuade one of them to step down, or to begin a 40-50 day primary selection process. Party officials are nervous that the latter would lose popularity - especially at a time when the government is in an already weakened state and under pressure to call early elections.

Blanco himself gave a radio interview saying how he was not in favour of the party deciding to field one candidate, but many party officials disagree - despite the fact that the primary selection process is a procedure that they instigated themselves.

The terms of the PSOE party state that members have 15 to 20 days from Saturday to seek backing from the party membership or leaders and nominate themselves as potential candidates. If there is more than one candidate with support and backing of other party members, a contest for the leadership gets underway which can take a further tow to three weeks.