20 Facts About Esperanza Aguirre

Esperanza Aguirre y Gil de Biedma is a Spanish politician.

Esperanza Aguirre chaired the People's Party of the Community of Madrid between 2004 and 2016.

Esperanza Aguirre is second cousin of the photographer Ouka Leele.

Esperanza Aguirre studied in the La Asuncion School and in the British Council School of Madrid and earned a degree in Law at the Complutense University of Madrid in 1974.

In 1976 Esperanza Aguirre became a civil servant, as member of the Corps of Information of Tourism's Technicians.

Esperanza Aguirre was head of the Department of Publicity and Tourism, where she remained until 1979.

Esperanza Aguirre was appointed Deputy General Director of Studies of the Technical General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture in 1980.

Since her early years Esperanza Aguirre had been a member of the Club Liberal of Madrid, which was presided over by Pedro Schwartz.

Esperanza Aguirre was re-elected to the city council and continued in opposition until 1989, when a successful vote of no confidence ousted the PSOE mayor Juan Barranco, which allowed the PP and Democratic and Social Centre to govern Madrid for the first time since the restoration of competitive municipal elections in 1979, under the Mayorship of Agustin Rodriguez Sahagun.

The PP won a council majority in the 1991 election and Jose Maria Alvarez del Manzano was invested as new mayor, with Esperanza Aguirre remaining in the municipal government board.

Esperanza Aguirre was succeeded in those posts in 1999 by Mariano Rajoy.

Esperanza Aguirre resigned in 2002 to run for the Presidency of the Autonomous Community of Madrid in the regional Assembly elections of 2003.

Esperanza Aguirre was substituted as President of the Senate by Juan Jose Lucas.

Esperanza Aguirre announced her retirement as president on 17 September 2012, citing health issues, and that she would return to her career as a civil servant at the Ministry of Tourism.

Esperanza Aguirre remained as President of the People's Party of the Community of Madrid.

In 2016, Esperanza Aguirre resigned from her position as regional party president, ostensibly due to the many corruption cases in the Madrilenian PP under her watch.

Esperanza Aguirre retained her position of opposition leader in the Madrid municipal government, and the overall maneuver was widely interpreted as a broadside against her party rival, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Esperanza Aguirre was replaced as spokesperson of the PP municipal group by Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida.

On 19 March 2020 alongside her husband, Esperanza Aguirre was admitted to the hospital after being tested positive for COVID-19 during coronavirus pandemic in Spain.

Esperanza Aguirre has often been regarded as a leading figure of the most conservative wing of the PP, and, having reportedly held political differences and an uneasy personal relationship with PP's leader Mariano Rajoy, she personally asked the latter for a change in the leadership of the party before the June 2016 general election.