Rajoy also fallen away as party leader

Spanish ex-prime minister Mariano Rajoy has also resigned as leader of the conservative People's Party (PP) after his departure as prime minister.

A majority of the Spanish parliament voted last week for a vote of no confidence against Rajoy, which had been submitted by the socialist PSOE. The reason was the sentencing to long prison terms of some of the PP's directors for corruption. Rajoy was immediately succeeded by the leader of the PSOE, the 46-year-old economist Pedro Sánchez.