Business leader to run for Spain's opposition

MADRID, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Spanish business leader Manuel Pizarro will run for Spain's opposition Popular Party in the March general election as part of its strategy to make the slowing economy a campaign issue, a party leader said.

Manuel Pizarro, former chairman of power firm Endesa, would be a possible candidate for economy minister should the conservative opposition win the March 9 race, said Miguel Arias, Popular Party Executive Secretary.

Pizarro will run alongside opposition leader Mariano Rajoy in the capital Madrid.

"He adds a lot of weight to the economic team. Of course he would feature among candidates for economy minister," Arias told Reuters.

Spain's slowing economy has become a major political issue after unemployment began to rise at the end of a housing boom, inflation hit a 12-year high in December and consumer confidence fell to an historic low.

Pizarro will rival the government's respected, two-time Economy Minister Pedro Solbes who has agreed to stay on in his post should Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero win the election -- in which he leads Rajoy by about 2 percentage points in polls.

Solbes, 65, last year abandoned plans to retire at the end of this administration after the global credit crunch forced the government to cut its growth outlook for the first time since it entered office in 2004.

Pizarro clashed with the government during Endesa's merger process and currently serves on the board of Spain's largest telecoms company Telefonica.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Sarah Morris and Richard Balmforth)