MADRID -- The mayor of a Spanish resort town was ousted Tuesday in the culmination of a battle that pitted one of the country's most powerful politicians against her own mother on a question of discipline.
The conservative mayor of Benidorm in eastern Spain was voted out of office after a member of his party defected and sided with former Socialists to back a censure motion.
A pact signed in 1998 by Spain's two main parties _ the Socialists and the center-right Popular Party _ bars such political maneuvers. Town councilors who bring down rivals with help from turncoats face expulsion from their party.
The 13 politicians who did it to Benidorm's mayor included Maite Iraola, mother of 33-year-old Leire Pajin, the ruling Socialist party's No. 3 official at the national level.
When the motion was announced two weeks ago, Pajin threatened to kick Benidorm's Socialists out of the party and in a pointed reference to her mother said this applied to all of them, "whatever their first name is, whatever their last name is, wherever they may live."
Hours later, Iraola and the others dodged that by leaving the party on their own, although under Spanish law they got to keep their seats in Benidorm's town hall.
Still, for Iraola, "it has been a nightmare from the outset," said her husband, Jose Maria Pajin.
Leire Pajin's birthday was just last week, in the middle of all this mess, and reporters asked if her mother had called to wish her happy birthday. She had, Pajin said.
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