It has been a dramatic few weeks in Spanish politics. Days after Easter, the former head of the Madrid regional government, Ignacio González, was arrested on corruption charges. This in turn led to a major internal crisis in the ruling Popular Party (PP) which saw the resignation of the party’s historic leader in the Spanish capital Esperanza Aguirre.

A polarizing figure, who was seen as the “Spanish Thatcher,” Aguirre’s position as head of the PP on the Madrid council was no longer tenable. With the regional party she had headed for over a decade already caught up in an investigation into illegal campaign financing, the arrest of her former right-hand man Gonzalez was the final straw.

Meanwhile, Mariano Rajoy, the country’s Prime Minster, has now been called as a witness in one of the largest corruption cases in recent Spanish history, the so-called Gurtel plot, which has seen a number of key former PP officials charged, including the party’s former treasurer Luis Bárcenas.