María San Gil is back on the front pages today after confirming her intention to step down as the leader of the Basque branch of the Partido Popular to party leader Mariano Rajoy during a tense 45 minute breakfast meeting yesterday morning. Last Monday, the regional executive committee voted to bring forward the next party conference to July, when the party will elect a new leader.

Ms San Gil, who is one of a growing number of prominent right-wingers concerned by Mr Rajoy's efforts to drag the party towards the political centre, is particularly alarmed by proposals to cooperate more closely with the ruling moderate nationalist PNV party.

At yesterday's meeting, the second since Ms San Gil walked away from the party's strategy team the weekend before last, Mr Rajoy is reported to have "done everything possible" to convince Ms San Gil to reconsider.

Immediately after the meeting, the deflated leader was unwilling to confirm Ms San Gil's decision, saying only that his Basque counterpart "has always had, and will continue to have, his full support."

The rift is being described as 'the most serious crisis in the history of the PP' (Público, El Mundo), while El País claims that 'San Gil deepens PP crisis by abandoning her post'.

PP crisis: San Gil offers to resign over shift to centre
By: thinkSPAIN
Thursday, May 15, 2008

At her first public appearance since dramatically walking away from a strategy team meeting in Madrid last Sunday, Basque PP leader María San Gil announced that she plans to resign from office unless her confidence in party leader Mariano Rajoy can be restored before the annual conference in Valencia next June.

Ms San Gil admitted that her decision to step down from the team tasked with outlining the party's post-election strategy document was not just a problem with the text, but represented a fundamental ideological break "with the national leadership," and "sufficiently serious for me to take a backwards step."

Later, Ms San Gil and Mr Rajoy were spotted together at the chapel of rest for Juan Manuel Piñuel, who died in a terrorist car bomb attack on a Guardia Civil barracks in Legutiano during the early hours of yesterday morning.

After paying their respects to the murdered officer's family and colleagues, the two held brief informal talks at an hotel in Vitoria, the outcome of which have not been divulged. 

Madrid president says San Gil's decision 'should make us all reflect'
By: thinkSPAIN
Monday, May 12, 2008

Esperanza Aguirre, who was standing in for María San Gil at the inauguration of the 7th annual 'Resources for Conciliation' Conference organised by the Women, Family and Work Association in collaboration with the regional government of Madrid, said that the Basque leader's decision to step down from the team tasked to define the Partido Popular's strategy ahead of next June's annual party conference, "should make all members stop and think, especially those who, at this point in time, are politically responsible for the party on a national level."

Describing Ms San Gil as "a moral reference" within the party, and as someone who had been "less than two metres away when former Basque party leader, Gregorio Ordóñez, was assassinated" Ms Aguirre affirmed that her Basque counterpart must have "good reasons" for not supporting the proposed text.

For her part, government first vice-president, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, wished the PP "luck" in resolving their internal differences "as soon as possible" so that they can "really focus" on the activities expected of them as the country's main opposition party.

Basque PP leader resigns from strategy team
By: thinkSPAIN
Monday, May 12, 2008

María San Gil has dramatically resigned from the PP strategy team charged with outlining the party's revised manifesto that will be unveiled at the PP annual conference in Valencia  next June (20th-22nd).

In a short statement released by the Basque branch of the Partido Popular last night, the exact reasons for Ms San Gil's decision were not confirmed, but it is believed that she is against plans to begin working more closely with the ruling PNV moderate Basque nationalist party.

Ms San Gil was one of a team of three - the others being José Manuel Soria and Alicia Sánchez Camacho - tasked with outlining the main pillars of the party's revised political and economic strategy.

The first draft of the manifesto is due to be published today at the start of a two-week discussion and amendment process.

It defines the party as "reformist, liberal and centrist," and among its objectives are to revive the bilateral Freedom and Anti-terrorist Pact with the ruling socialists to achieve the "defeat" of ETA and to negotiate a similar pact to ensure the government pursues a "realistic" immigration policy.