Spain PM refuses to resign amid scandal

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has brushed off demands that he should resign after text messages emerged showing him comforting a political party treasurer under investigation over a slush fund and secret Swiss bank accounts. The spectacle of alleged greed and corruption has enraged Spaniards, hurting from austerity and sky high unemployment, with no end in sight.

As Mariano Rajoy told reporters he would not step down, former Popular Party treasurer Luis Barcenas testified behind closed doors in Madrid, telling a judge investigating the slush fund allegations that he gave tens of thousands of euros in secret cash payments to Rajoy and party secretary general Maria Delores de Cospedal between 2008 and 2010 while they were key opposition leaders.

Rajoy declined to comment on specifics, while Cospedal slammed Barcenas' declarations as "new slander and lies" from a criminal suspect and said she never received cash payments from him. Rajoy insisted after meeting with Poland's premier that he will "see out the mandate the Spanish electorate gave me. This is a stable government that is going to fulfill its obligations."