the PP's Mayoral candidate for the municipality of Madrid, she subsequently ran first in the PP's list for the May 2015 Madrid municipal election. The PP's list obtained a simple majority of 20 seats out of a total 57, short of the qualified majority needed to remain in government without support from other political parties. She then unsuccessfully pressed to reach a three-way deal between the PP, Citizens and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) to avoid the investiture as Mayor's of the candidate of the left-wing Ahora Madrid, Manuela Carmena, with the support of the PSOE's municipal councillors. Soon after the investiture of Carmena as Mayor on 13 June 2015, Aguirre unsuccessfully proposed again another deal with Citizens and the PSOE to oust Carmena. In 2016, Aguirre resigned from her position as regional party president, ostensibly due to the many corruption cases in the Madrilenian PP under her watch. She retained her position of opposition leader in the Madrid municipal government, and the overall maneuver was widely interpreted as a broadside against her party rival, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. On 24 April 2017, she resigned as municipal councillor (and from all relating offices) after the imprisonment of her former right-hand man, Ignacio González (also her successor as regional president) for misappropriation of public funds in the Lezo corruption scandal. She was replaced as spokesperson of the PP municipal group by José Luis Martínez-Almeida. Life after retirement and judicial case After her retirement, she divided her spare time between the dedication to her 6 grandchildren and her passion for golf. Following an August 2019 request filed by the Prosecution service of the Audiencia Nacional before the instructing judge Manuel García-Castellón, the former charged Aguirre (along with her successors in the presidency of the Madrid region, Ignacio González and Cristina Cifuentes) with alleged crimes of illicit funding, diversion of public money and document forgery on 2 September 2019 in the proceedings of the Púnica corruption case. García-Castellón, pointed out on a tentative basis the alleged "decisive and essential" role of Aguirre in the PP's illegal funding scheme, through which more than 6 million euros were subtracted from 8 regional ministries and agencies. On 19 March 2020 alongside her husband, Aguirre was admitted to the hospital after being tested positive for COVID-19 during coronavirus pandemic in Spain. Positions and ideology Esperanza Aguirre self-defines as a "liberal". Known by her professed anglophilia, she