The Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy says the economic crisis and corruption scandals in the country have taken their toll on his party as it suffered losses in recent local elections.

Rajoy told a party gathering on Thursday that the conservative Popular Party’s poor performance during the late May polls was due to the fact that most people in Spain are yet to start feeling the effects of the nation's economic recovery.

Some 2.5 million supporters of the Popular Party in the 2011 local elections voted for other parties in the May polls and the party’s portion of the vote fell from 37 percent to 27 percent this year.

"Spaniards have had enough of struggling," the prime minister said while pointing to a series of corruption scandals involving senior members of his party, adding, "We paid dearly" for them.

In another loss for the Popular Party, it was also ousted from power in some of its strongholds such as Madrid and Valencia.

The Popular Party garnered the most votes overall, with socialists coming in second place with 25 percent of the vote followed by the anti-austerity party, Podemos.

The eurozone's fourth biggest economy suffers from a jobless rate of 23.8 percent despite its growth of 1.4 percent in 2014.

Spain has been hit by a wave of anti-austerity demonstrations and strikes since the country’s economy fell into recession in 2008.

The Spaniards are angry at the government’s austerity cuts, arguing that such measures have resulted in many economic difficulties over the past years.

MR/MHB/SS