Spain's cautious Rajoy thrust into crisis role

Mariano Rajoy, poised to become Spain's new prime minister after Sunday's parliamentary election, is a cautious moderate and unlikely crisis manager for a country engulfed by euro zone debt troubles.

The colourless 56-year-old former interior minister struggles to crack a smile and his huge, 17 percentage points, lead in polls is built more on mistakes made by the Socialists, in power the past seven years, than on his own vision.

Still, his centre-right People's Party is expected to win by a landslide as voters blame the Socialists for economic woes that are pushing Spain back into recession and for the European Union's highest unemployment rate, 22%.

Financial markets and Spaniards are looking to Rajoy for lightning-swift action as the country's borrowing costs have soared to near unsustainable levels. This week the country had to pay 5 percent interest to buyers of a one-year Treasury bill.

But Rajoy, who studied law and worked as a land registrar before getting into politics in his mid-20s, is better known for self-restraint, for listening carefully to advisors and for preaching patience than for taking strong initiatives.

The son of a judge, Rajoy has the impenetrable demeanour typical of his native Galicia in northern Spain, where people are famed for their reserve and for answering a question with a question.

"He will make the right decisions, but as in the rest of the European Union right now, the question is whether the decisions can be made in time," said Jose Maria Areilza, dean of the IE law school in Madrid.

Rajoy, who has little international experience and limited English, is expected to name a heavyweight economy minister to deepen painful austerity measures at home and travel abroad to persuade investors that Spain has its accounts in order.

MOVING TO THE CENTRE

After being elected to several local and regional posts in Galicia in the 1980s, Rajoy moved to Madrid and served in four different ministerial posts under Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's pro-Washington prime minister from 1996-2004.

Aznar named Rajoy to succeed him in leading the party, and if it had not been for an Islamist attack on Madrid commuter trains three days before the 2004 parliamentary vote, he would probably already have been prime minister.

The outgoing Aznar wrongly blamed violent Basque separatist group ETA for the train bombings, handing a surprise victory to the Socialists. Rajoy ran and lost again in 2008 and was savaged even by the right-wing press.

But he survived the party move to oust him, quietly getting rid of the old Aznar conservatives and moving the PP towards the centre. His discrete power plays and pragmatic independence differentiate him from the typical PP leader, known for their ideological force or their authoritarian style.

"He's a long-distance runner, not a sprinter, and the economic crisis needs long-distance runners," said Member of Parliament Jose Maria Lassalle, a PP moderate, contrasting Rajoy with his Socialist rival Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, who was a sprinter in his youth.

"He is a type of soft power, little inclined to impose things, more about convincing, and that's what Spain needs right now most of all," said Lassalle, who has known Rajoy for eight years.

CONSERVATIVE CLUB

Rajoy should be in tune with the mostly conservative European leadership of the moment. However, some critics complain he has not sufficiently fostered a relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- a key ally as Spain and the entire euro currency area fend off market attacks.

Rajoy, who wears a scruffy beard first grown when the scars from a serious car accident prevented him from shaving, is married with two children.

Schooled by Roman Catholic nuns, he laments the decline of Latin studies in Spanish schools. His stable provincial family background means he has trouble relating to young Spaniards frustrated with a youth jobless rate of more than 40%.

He is dismissive of the "Indignados" (or Indignant) movement that took over public squares in May to protest the political status quo and inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement worldwide.

He smokes the occasional cigar and walks for exercise, a "minimum 31 days a month" he quips and is a former cyclist who is now a fan of watching that sport as well as football - he follows the Real Madrid team.

UUntil recently Rajoy had a dismal approval rating in opinion polls as Spaniards questioned whether he understood their problems. But perceptions have lifted as voters turned to his party to heal the economy.

"Who cares if he is boring if he's winning?" said one of his advisors, who asked not to be named.