Amid a collapsng economy [3] and as illegal party financing allegations close in around Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, his 42-year-old deputy has kept her name clean. Now, Der Spiegel reports [4], Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the most powerful woman in Spanish politics, is well poised to be his successor. As Rajoy becomes increasingly mired in the massive scandal over illegal party donations, corruption and financial contributions, Sáenz de Santamaría, a former state lawyer who represented the country's highest court, is one of the few in the party to remain untouched by the allegations. And that alone - sadly - may be enough to qualify her for the government's top job.
Via Der Speigel [4],
As illegal party financing allegations close in around Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, his 42-year-old deputy has kept her name clean. Now Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the most powerful woman in Spanish politics, is well poised to be his successor.
...Thousands showed up, assembling outside the headquarters of Spain's ruling People's Party in downtown Madrid...
The protests came in response to double accounting conducted by the party's former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. His incriminating ledgers, uncovered by Spanish newspapers, also implicate Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, as well as the party's secretary-general, other former ministers in the People's Party and further prominent conservative politicians. The only one who doesn't make an appearance in Bárcenas' accounts is Spain's most powerful female politician, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the 42-year-old deputy and closest confidante of the prime minister.
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The prime minister, meanwhile, is having to answer some uncomfortable questions: Why, for example, he continued to pay his party's former treasurer a monthly salary of €21,300 ($28,100), even though Bárcenas was forced to resign from his position three years ago after first being accused of corruption. Or why Rajoy continued to send Bárcenas friendly text messages even long after it emerged that Bárcenas had illegally moved many millions of euros into bank accounts abroad.
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One reason Rajoy is pleased to be able to rely on his deputy prime minister is that he can always count on her to have his back at the expense of developing a political profile of her own. But is that qualification enough for Sáenz de Santamaría to take charge of the government?
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Several times, Rajoy has sent Sáenz de Santamaría to talk to Angela Merkel, since he himself has little idea what to say to the German chancellor. Sáenz de Santamaría proudly displays a photograph of herself and Merkel on a bookshelf in her office.
The "Vice," as colleagues call her -- short for the Spanish vicepresidenta -- keeps her private life strictly private.