MADRID • Spain's opposition Popular Party (PP) has elected Mr Pablo Casado to replace Mr Mariano Rajoy as its leader, choosing a hard liner who wants to stop the Socialist government from making concessions to Catalan separatists and from legalising euthanasia.

Mr Casado, 37, won a run-off vote on Saturday against Ms Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, a former deputy prime minister who had served under Mr Rajoy, who was ousted as prime minister after losing a confidence vote in Parliament early last month.

Following a leadership race that exposed divisions within the party, Mr Casado told members in his acceptance speech: "The PP is back. We can't waste another minute speaking about ourselves. We must start talking about Spain again."

During his campaign to lead the Popular Party, Mr Casado criticised the new Socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez for offering to negotiate with the recently appointed Catalan government in Barcelona.

"Dialogue doesn't work with those who want to break the law," Mr Casado said recently, referring to lawmakers in Catalonia who illegally declared independence from Spain in October.

Mr Casado has also condemned Mr Sanchez's recent proposal to legalise euthanasia, urging conservative voters to defend "without complex" the rights to life and the family.

The Popular Party's new leader has proposed reintroducing a more restrictive law on abortion than the one passed by a previous Socialist administration, which allows terminations in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

In his first term, Mr Rajoy had tried to tighten the abortion law, but he eventually abandoned the idea after street protests.

Mr Casado has also led opposition to Mr Sanchez's plan to exhume Francisco Franco, the dictator who was buried in the underground basilica he built after winning Spain's civil war.

Within days of taking office, the new prime minister said his government wanted to give the former dictator a more modest burial place as part of an effort to atone for the crimes of the civil war and the repression that followed the conflict.

"I would not spend one euro on exhuming Franco," Mr. Casado recently said.

The two are, indeed, expected to clash over fiscal issues.

Mr Sanchez presented a Budget plan this month that foresees higher public spending and corporate taxes. Mr Casado has criticised the plan, promising instead to lower corporate taxes to increase Spain's competitiveness.

Mr Sanchez leads a fragile Socialist government that holds one-quarter of the seats in Parliament and that relies on the continued support of the far-left party Podemos, as well as Basque and Catalan lawmakers who helped oust Mr Rajoy.

NYTIMES, REUTERS