Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón

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Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón Jiménez (born December 11, 1958) is a Spanish politician and currently mayor of Madrid. A stalwart of the Partido Popular (People's Party, Spain's national center-right party), he has previously been a leading figure in various local and national legislative bodies.

1 Personal life
2 Political life
3 Mayor of Madrid
4 References

[edit] Personal life

Ruiz-Gallardón was born in Madrid. His father, José María Ruiz-Gallardón, was a member of the directorate of the Alianza Popular (AP, "People's Alliance"), precursor to the present-day Partido Popular. He attended secondary school in Madrid at the Jesuit Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Recuerdo, where he was an outstanding student, and then studied law at the Colegio Mayor San Pablo CEU.

He is married to María del Mar Utrera. She is the daughter of José Utrera Molina, a former Minister of the Franquist regime. They have four sons, Alberto, José, Ignacio and Rodrigo.

[edit] Political life

As a lawyer, Ruiz-Gallardón sat for exams to begin a career as a prosecutor at the age of 23. He attained the position, ranking second in the XXVIII Promoción. He was given a position in the Audiencia Provincial de Málaga, where he served for a short time until given leave to take charge of the party's legal counsel.

In May 1983 he was elected to the Madrid city council. In February 1986, at the party's Seventh National Congress, he joined its Executive Committee. In the same year, he ran unsuccessfully as a Senate candidate for Palencia in the general elections (a district in which his party had little chance of winning). In the aftermath, the secretary general of his party, Jorge Verstrynge, retired and Ruiz-Gallardón became the interim secretary general until the Party Congress could convene.

His next political move was in December 1986, when the leadership of the AP's division in Madrid named him their candidate for the presidency of the Autonomous Community of Madrid with no eventual success. In February 1987, the Eighth Special Congress of the AP appointed Antonio Hernández Mancha as president. Ruiz-Gallardón left his interim presidential position and was named one of the four vice-presidents of the party.

Ruiz-Gallardón won a position as Deputy of the Madrid Assembly on June 10, 1987. Only one month later, he was simultaneously elected to the Senate and named spokesman of the AP in such body. On October 22, 1988, Ruiz-Gallardón resigned his party positions as the result of a misunderstanding with party president Mancha over an agreement with the CDS regarding Assembly rules. At the party's Ninth Congress in January 1989, Mancha was replaced as president by Manuel Fraga. The party was re-founded as the Partido Popular (PP), and Ruiz-Gallardón was appointed to the National Executive Committee and became president on the Committee for Conflicts and Discipline.

Following the general elections on October 29, 1989, Ruiz-Gallardón continued serving as a senator for Madrid and, as in the previous legislature, headed the Grupo Popular in the Senate. He returned to the PP's National Executive Committee at the Tenth Congress, this time as president. He also retained his position as president of the Commission on Conflicts. In April of 1990, he headed an internal investigation of the Caso Naseiro. This investigation resulted in the expulsion of several party officials, including Eduardo Zaplana.

First among his party's candidates for the Senate in Madrid in the general elections of June 6, 1993, Ruiz-Gallardón was once again elected to the Senate. He became the spokesman for the Senate Grupo Popular, and subsequently resigned his corresponding position in the Madrid Assembly. He continues to serve as the a regional deputy and the president of the PP in the Madrid Assembly. He was reelected for a third consecutive term on May 28, 1995. He became president on June 28 at a session of the regional Assembly.

[edit] Mayor of Madrid

Encouraged by the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Gallardón became the PP's candidate for the Madrid mayor election of 2003. He was successful on his bid by obtaining a majority of the votes. One of his first decisions was to increase city taxes as a medium to back his future plans for the city.

Nicknamed ironically the "Pharaoh" by many locals, the mayor has set a urban renewal plan for Madrid that includes the completition of a new highway (M-30), the redevelopment of the Manzanares river bank, a push for the virtual gentrification of dwindling historic downtown areas, and a reform on the existing finance laws. In fact, the Madrid 2012 Olympic bid figured as the most ambitious component of his plan despite being planned by his predecessor, José María Álvarez del Manzano. Several other projects, such as the four skyscrapers under construction in the old training grounds of Real Madrid, have boosted his urban plans. In May 2006, Baroness Carmen Cervera publicly demonstrated against his plan to reform Paseo del Prado as the baroness feared for the effects on her co-managed Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Gallardón is well known as a progressive politician, which places him in the liberal wing of his conservative political party. During his administration Madrid began following the new same-sex marriage legislation supported by the national government and approved by the Spanish Congress.