TV duel before Spanish election turns into a "mud fight" without a winner
Ahead of the parliamentary election, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy engaged in an unusually heated televised debate with the Socialist opposition leader, Pedro Sánchez.
Media commentators compared the eagerly awaited debate on Tuesday to a "mud fight". There was no clear winner. The challenger Sánchez used the duel just six days before the election to launch sharp attacks on the conservative head of government, accusing him of the series of corruption scandals in his People's Party (PP). For the leading candidate of the Socialists (PSOE), the debate was virtually the last chance to make up for his party's deficit in the polls. According to polls, the PSOE can only hope for 20 to 22 percent of the vote, the PP 25 to 30 percent.
Demand for resignation draws Rajoy out of his reserve
Sánchez was very aggressive and never missed an opportunity to bring up the names of PP politicians Rodrigo Rato and Luis Bárcenas, who were involved in corruption scandals. Rajoy initially reacted calmly to the attacks and pointed out that his government had led Spain out of the crisis and helped it achieve new growth. However, the smart PSOE party leader then managed to draw the head of government out of his shell. "You should have resigned two years ago," Sánchez reproached his counterpart. "A prime minister should be decent, and you're not." Rajoy was taken aback for a moment, but then struck back, describing the accusations as "mean, vile and miserable". Conservative commentators accused Sánchez of using the wrong tone. The opposition leader rejected this. "I have no regrets about what I said", he emphasized after the debate. "I only said what millions of Spaniards think about the corruption in the PP."
"Merciless boxing match"
The duel was the only TV debate Rajoy will face before the election next Sunday. The head of government had declined to take part in a debate with the candidates from the up-and-coming liberal party Ciudadanos (Citizens) and the new left-wing party Podemos (We Can). The liberal newspaper El Mundo found: "The leading candidates fought a merciless boxing match in which there were plenty of low blows." The debate lacked concrete proposals, but there were insults in abundance. "Ciudadanos and Podemos were the big winners of the TV debate, even though they didn't even take part," the newspaper concluded. Their party leaders Albert Rivera and Pablo Iglesias had shown in other debates that it is possible to debate without insulting rivals. (SDA)
