Born
in San Sebastián in 1951, Jaime Mayor Oreja is married and has 4 children,
three dogs and, according to his profile in the PP homepage, loves the countryside,
nature and cycling.
Mayor Oreja studied a degree in Agronomous Engineering
and began his political career as an elected member of parliament for the UCD
Party in 1979.
En 1982 he was Regional Minister for Tourism in the pre-regional
Government in the Basque Country, and in 1984 he presented his candidature in
the Basque Autonomous Elections. In 1989 he was elected political director of
the PP campaign for the European Elections.
In 1996, when the Popular Party
won the Spanish national election, Mayor Oreja became Interior Minister and continued
until 2001 when he left this post to become the official candidate for the Presidency
of the Autonomous Basque Region. The Basque Nationalist Party won these elections.
Mayor
Oreja was the person responsable for the strategy of the Popular Party in Spain's
regional and municipal elections in 2003 and after the elections this year, he
was appointed Popular Party candidate for the European Elections 2004.
