Socialist Pedro Sanchez took over as Spain’s prime minister on Friday, after outgoing leader Mariano Rajoy lost a parliamentary confidence vote triggered by a long-running corruption trial involving members of his centre-right party.
Socialist party head Sanchez becomes Spain’s seventh Prime Minister since its return to democracy in the late 1970s following the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
But Rajoy’s departure after six years in office casts one of the European Union’s top four economies into an uncertain political landscape, just as another – Italy – pulled back from early elections.
