Revision as of 13:16, 7 March 2005

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (born August 4, 1960) is the fifth prime minister of Spain since the restoration of democracy in 1978, following his party's victory in the March 14 Spanish general election. He was sworn in as prime minister (or president of the government) by King Juan Carlos I on April 17, 2004. He has been General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since 2000.

First years

Rodríguez Zapatero was born in Valladolid but grew up in León whence his affluent family with a long tradition of left-wing politics originated. His father was a prominent, successful lawyer, his grandfather, Juan Rodriguez Lozano, a Freemason and a Republican captain executed by the Nationals in the Spanish Civil War.

He studied Law at the University of León. Previously, he had attended private schools managed by the Catholic Church (something typical among Spanish affluent families even today). His performance as a student was always poor.

In 1977, being still under 18, Zapatero joined the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialists' Workers Party) after attending his first political rally in Gijón, where he heard the PSOE leader and future Prime Minister of Spain, Felipe González (the impression Felipe González caused upon him played a fundamental role in his decision of joining the party). In 1977, the PSOE had not yet renounced Marxism as its ideological base (which happened in 1979).

In 1982, he became head of the socialist youth organization in the province of León. In 1986, he was elected to represent the province of León, becoming the youngest Member of the Spanish Cortes (Parliament). In 1988 he was elected to head the regional chapter of the socialist party in León, and in 1997 he was appointed to the party's governing body.

Zapatero worked as a Law professor in the University of León until 1986.

Activities as an opposition leader

In 2000, the PSOE had lost its second successive election to José María Aznar's People's Party. The defeat was specially bitter as the People's Party unexpectedly obtained an absolute majority for the first time and the socialist result was worse than in the previous election. Joaquín Almunia, the Socialist candidate and successor of Felipe González as leader of the party, announced his resignation on the very day the General Election took place.

Soon afterwards (on July 23 2000) Rodríguez Zapatero was elected leader of the PSOE after being appointed General Secretary (Secretario General) of the party . He was the representative of a faction known as "Nueva Vía" ("New Way"), self-defined as modernizing. Its ideology is supposedly inspired by 's "" although the ideological differences between the Spanish and British leaders are important (as the Iraq war made clear). Zapatero ran against three other opponents (José Bono, Rosa Díez and Matilde Fernández) and won by a very small margin (he obtained 414 votes out of 995 and José Bono obtained 405). Zapatero was a dark horse who had against him his inexperience and in favor his image of renovation and being the only among the candidates. (All the Spanish opposition leaders have been MPs before winning the elections. That is very important in Spanish politics where electoral campaigns last for only 15 days and to be widely known long before they begin is essential.)

As an opposition leader Zapatero continuously boasted his self-alleged "love for dialogue", which he liked to compare with the "arrogant", "authoritarian" approach of the People's Party and, especially, that of his leader José María Aznar. To describe his strategy he coined the expression Tranquil Opposition (Oposición Tranquila). It was based on an "open to dialogue", "soft", "constructive" attitude ('Talante') aimed not at damaging the government but at achieving the "best" for the people. (Zapatero has insisted on this point so many times that the term 'Talante' has become very popular in Spain.) Because of this supposed tactic, Zapatero received nicknames like "" or "Sosoman" (where "Soso" -- meaning dull, insipid, bore -- replaces "Super" in "") especially in the first months after being appointed General Secretary.

Zapatero's years as an opposition leader (and later as Prime Minister) has been widely considered a time of continuous radicalization of the Spanish political life, a phenomenon also observed by some international media . Zapatero's supporters blame his opponents for that and the People's Party blames him using for that facts as the increase in the acts of violence committed against them, especially in the months before and during the Iraq war . Zapatero himself took part several times in public demonstrations where small groups committed acts of vandalism in a limited fashion. As a result, a new term was coined: "guerracivilismo" (made up of a combination of the Spanish for Civil War and the -ismo suffix, equivalent to the English -ism) which would refer to the growing enmity of right and left-wing factions.

Summing up the different views, it can be said that Zapatero's supporters define him as a capacious, good-natured, humble leader open to dialogue. His opponents, on the other hand and in different degrees, accuse him of being an unprepared, radical politician and (after winning the 2004 Election) of not having a serious program.

Zapatero's criticism against the government was very active from the beginning. His first attack against the government was based on its inability to control the rise in the price of fossil fuel in 2000. He asked for a reduction in the taxes on fuel.

At the end of the same year, the Mad Cow disease came back to the spotlight after its outbreak in 1996. Zapatero repeatedly criticized the Government's management of the crisis arguing that it was out of control . That disease has caused dozens of deaths all over Europe though none in Spain (February 2005).

In 2000 the British nuclear submarine H.M.S. Tireless arrived at the Gibraltar harbor to have its nuclear reactor repaired. Aznar's affirmed that there was no risk for the population but Zapatero criticized it for his inability to force the British government to take the submarine to another harbor. After almost one year, the Tireless was repaired and left Gibraltar without having caused any known problem. .

In 2002 the People's Party Government decided to reform the system of unemployment benefits as it thought that there were too many workers who being able to find a job preferred to continue receiving public money. This led to a redefinition of who were eligible for unemployment subsidies. Left-wing parties and trade unions considered that redefinition an unacceptable reduction of rights. Zapatero became the political leader of the opposition against the reform, which served him as his first important clash with Aznar's government. A General Strike was announced for June 20, 2002 (the first since Aznar won the election in 1996). According to official data (including the electrical power consumption and the number of worked man-days calculated by the Social Security) the turnout was lower than 15%, the lowest since the restoration of democracy (there were four General Strikes during Felipe González premiership). The unions and Zapatero disbelieved the data and considered the strike a resounding success. Whatever the result, some months later both the People's Party government and the trade unions signed an agreement that satisfied both parties.

In November 2002 the oil tanker Prestige suffered an accident in international waters near Galicia (a region in the Northwestern tip of Spain) that caused a grave oil slick. Zapatero blamed the PP Government's for everything and criticized its management during and after the accident . A Socialist MP in the Regional Assembly of Madrid, Antonio Carmona, declared soon after the catastrophe: "We have more than enough votes, if not, we will sink another boat".

Zapatero opposed the reforms of the Spanish University and of the Secondary Education promoted by the government. This time, the People's Party used his absolute majority in the Cortes to pass its reforms.

Another point of friction came from the scheme to transfer water from the River Ebro to other areas especially the irrigated areas in the South East of Spain, one of the richest agricultural regions in the world. That scheme received support from, among others, the 80% of the affected farmers and the Socialist regional governments of regions such as Extremadura, Andalusia or Castilla-La Mancha, which were, among others, the target of the scheme. Some Socialist politicians also supported it when they were members of the former Socialist government back in the 90s (e.g. José Borrell, the current leader of the European Spanish Socialist Group and president of the European Parliament ). The scheme was mainly contested by Zapatero, environmentalist groups, the Socialist regional government of Aragon and a part of the citizens of the areas from which water was to be transferred. The main criticisms against the scheme were the supposed damage to the environment and an argued real lack of sufficient water for all of the affected parties (the proponents of the scheme answered back that there was no risk of a serious environmental damage and that in 2003 14 times more water reached the sea than what was needed annually).

On May 26, 2003 a Yakolev 42 plane carrying Spanish soldiers coming home from Afghanistan crashed in Turkey. The plane had been hired by an agency of the NATO and any other country could have used it. After the March elections it was proven that there had been serious irregularities when recognizing the bodies with an important number of mistakes in the identifications. Zapatero again criticized the Government and said it was guilty of everything.

Concerning the European Constitution, Zapatero criticized the People's Party Government decision of trying to preserve the distribution of power agreed by the Nice treaty (December 2000) in the new European Constitution. Zapatero thought that Spain should accept a lesser share of power.

Probably, the main point of friction between Aznar and Zapatero was Iraq. Opinion polls showed that a clear majority of Spanish voters were against the American led attack against Saddam's regime (near or surpassing 90%). Among them, Zapatero who considered illegal any action against the former Saddam Hussein's regime and the very concept of preemptive war. Zapatero never made public what he thought that ought to be done to solve the several problems initiated after Iraq's defeat in Kuwait such as the fear caused by the suspicion that Iraq possessed WMD or the embargo Iraq was suffering for that suspected possession that had already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, an important number of whom were children.

His first brush with the United States is related to his stance about the war. On October 12 2003 (Spanish national holiday) he remained sat before the American flag carried by a representation of the American army taking part in the annual military parade. He declared afterwards that his action was a protest against the Iraq war and not an insult to the American people.

As an opposition leader Zapatero enjoyed the support of an important part of the Spanish media and, especially, those belonging to the PRISA group such as the daily newspaper "El País", the chain of radio stations that form the SER (Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión) or the TV channel Canal+. The PRISA group is controlled by Jesús de Polanco (one of the richest man in Spain) who has been linked to the Socialist Party in the past years. It has been claimed that he controls more media in Spain than Berlusconi in Italy.

All of the opinion polls elaborated at the time foreseen bad results for Zapatero, as they always predicted a new victory for the People's Party.

2004 Electoral campaign and Election

The 2004 General Election was preceded by the Local and Regional Elections of May 25, 2003. As usual, the Socialist Party and the People's Party were unable to agree who had won them. According to the first, the victory was socialist as they received a larger popular vote. In the opinion of the People's Party the victory was theirs as they obtained more elected government posts in councils and regional governments.

Some interesting data was extracted from the outcome of the election. For example, the results in the areas affected by the Prestige disaster were especially good for the People's Party. Zapatero's opponents claimed that they proved that the Government handling of the crisis had been adequate and that Zapatero's criticisms had been unfair, demagogical and electioneering.

Another interesting fact was the defeat of the People's Party in the Autonomous Community of Madrid ( is the official name for regions with their own local government). After the election, the People's Party lacked two seats in the Regional Assembly to obtain an absolute majority. This allowed an alliance of Socialists and Communists to grab the power. The situation was amply welcome by Zapatero for propagandistic reasons: until then whoever had won in Madrid had also won the next General Election. But an unexpected event happened. Two socialists MPs angry at the distribution of power between the Communist Party (called in Spain Izquierda Unida, United Left) and the Socialist Party and also within the very Socialist Party started a crisis that led to the repetition of the Election in Madrid in October 2003 with the subsequent victory of the People's Party. This event has been one of the most obscure in Spanish recent democratic history. Zapatero did not accept the version of the socialist MPs and tried to explain it through a supposed conspiratorial plot caused by speculative interests of the house building industry who would have attempted to prevent the formation of a Left-wing government.

Fifteen days before March 14 2004 the campaign started. The opinion polls were favorable to the People's Party, which could even repeat its absolute majority according to some of them.

One of the most important friction points was the absence of televised debates between the candidates. Zapatero was the first to propose a debate to Mariano Rajoy, the new leader of the People's Party after Aznar's voluntary retirement. Rajoy accepted on the condition that Zapatero could not be alone but accompanied at least by two of his potential allies after the election: Gaspar Llamazares (the leader of United Left a Spanish Communist Party) and Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira (leader of Republican Left of Catalonia, a pro-Independence Catalan party very unpopular outside Catalonia). Rajoy justified his decision on the grounds that, in his opinion, he was not running against the Socialist Party but against a "coalition" of forces opposed to the People's Party policies. Zapatero never formally answered this proposal and continued criticizing throughout the campaign what he always defined as Mr. Rajoy's reluctance to defend face-to-face his political program. (Zapatero has promised to change electoral law to make televised debates compulsory.)

On Thursday March 11, 2004 the most terrible terrorist attacks ever in Spanish history took place. Several commuters' trains were bombed causing 192 deaths and a terrible outrage all over Spain. The attacks took place three days before the General Election and all electoral activities were suspended. The common sorrow instead of promoting unity among Spaniards increased the already bitter tone of the campaign .

Everybody, including the People's Party government and Zapatero, initially claimed the attacks to be the work of the Basque terrorist organization ETA. Later, after an audiotape in Arab was found in a van near a Railway Station where the terrorists boarded one of the trains, Aznar declared that all of the possibilities were being investigated . The government was accused of manipulating the existing information about the real authorship of the attacks in an attempt to avoid the consequences of public angry at a bombing caused by a radical Islamist reaction to its foreign policy.

Zapatero himself has accused the Popular Party again and again of lying about who were those responsible for the attacks. On the other hand, Zapatero has been accused of telling the Spanish media that suicidal bombers had been found among the victims in the hours following the blasts (although all the specialists that examined the bodies said they found no evidence pointing to that) . When he was asked in December 2004 about the issue by the Parliamentary Investigative Committee created to find the truth about the attacks he declared that he did not "remember" what he had said.

After the demonstrations that took place in front of the People's Party premises all over Spain on March 13 2004 (the reflection day when, according to the law, demonstrations are forbidden), Zapatero won the election on March 14, 2004. The PSOE won 164 seats in the Cortes, and the People's Party obtained 148. It seems likely that the election result was influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the Spanish public's response to the attacks.

An important point of controversy is if the attacks intended to change the electoral result or not. This has been called by the ex-Prime Minister José María Aznar, among others, the "March 4 theory" (that is, if the election had been scheduled for March 7, the attacks would have taken place on March 4). No definitive data exists in favor of that possibility but some facts have been used to support it. Thus, the first question Jamal Zougam (one of the first arrested suspects) made when he arrived at the Courthouse on Monday March 15, 2004 was: 'Who has won the election?' .

All of these controversies put a blemish on Zapatero's victory. The electoral result was considered by some foreign media, especially in the US, an example of weakness that would encourage further terrorist attacks as Zapatero had opposed Bush's policy in the Middle East and had promised to withdraw the Spanish troops. Left-wingers, among others, dismissed this point of view as absurd as the Spanish people have lived in defiance of ETA for decades and Zapatero himself has firmly condemned terrorism.

On June 13, 2004 (three months after the General Election) the Election for the European Parliament took place. The Socialist Party won again with 25 seats against 24 for the People's Party (out of 54).

Zapatero has lost no election since he started his life as a politician.

Appointment by the Congress and inauguration

Zapatero had won the election but he lacked the necessary absolute majority needed to ensure his appointment as Prime Minister (176 are needed for that, he counted only with 162 MPs). Between the Election Day and the debate prior to his election by the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados) a period of negotiations with different forces started.

At its end, he obtained the support of United Left and Republican Left of Catalonia what allowed him to be elected in the first vote cast by the Congress.

The support of Zapatero's allies was obtained without drafting an official agreement for the rest of his period of office. Because of that, the Socialist Party needs to negotiate with the rest of political forces before any vote takes place in the Parliament. Mariano Rajoy has repeatedly accused Zapatero's government of being weak due to its lack of permanent support.

As a Prime Minister, Zapatero has been the first leader of a Spanish government to have the same number of male and female ministers. He has declared he is feminist.

Prime Minister

Domestic policy

The 2004 CIA world factbook summed up the initial Rodríguez Zapatero intentions saying that "he plans to reduce government intervention in business, combat tax fraud, and support innovation, research and development, but also intends to reintroduce labor market regulations that had been scraped by the Aznar government".

The first law his government passed was against domestic violence. At first, Zapatero wanted it to protect only women, forgetting other victims like children, elders or men. According to the General Council of the Judicial Power (Consejo General del Poder Judicial), that stance made the initial draft unconstitutional as it discriminated citizens for its sex. Finally, the text was changed and the term 'especially vulnerable victim' substituted that of 'woman' after which the law was approved by unanimity.

Zapatero has declared that his government will not be "soft on terrorism" and will not allow regional nationalists to endanger Spanish unity. The most important cause of his comment seems to have been his alliance with Republican Left of Catalonia, a pro-independence Catalan party whose leader (Carod-Rovira) met some ETA terrorists secretly in January 2004. According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, Carod-Rovira promised to provide ETA with political support if the terrorist group did not act in Catalonia what seems to have been confirmed by the ETA announcement of a truce affecting only that region some months later. There has been a serious increase in the number of terrorist attacks since the Socialist victory (although without any victim until now, February 2005).

The biggest defiance against Spanish unity has come from Juan José Ibarretxe - the head of the Basque Regional Government. His so-called Ibarretxe Plan is a reform of the statutes now regulating the functioning of the Basque Autonomous Community almost equivalent to a declaration of independence. It was rejected in the Congress of the Deputies in Madrid with the votes, among others, of the Socialist Party and the People's Party. Republican Left of Catalonia voted in favor of it, what introduced new doubts on Zapatero's willingness to defend Spanish interests, as to govern he depends on the ballots of that party.

Another of Zapatero's electoral promises was making housing more accessible. Housing prices have increased largely in the past two or three years in Spain. For that purpose he created a new ministry. The Minister of Housing (Ministra de la Vivienda) has declared that her intention is not to reduce the prices but to allow people to obtain a house more easily. In Zapatero's first year as prime minister the cost of buying a house has increased around 17% on average .

In October 2004 Zapatero's government undertook the task of morally and legally rehabilitating those who were suppressed during and after the Spanish Civil War, by instituting a Memory Commission chaired by Vice-president María Teresa Fernández de la Vega. Some accused him of deliberately limiting the commission's mandate to focussing on left-wing victims of right-wing oppression by excluding the incidents in Republican territory. According to Newsweek Zapatero's grandfather's, in his will, called on family members to clear his name "when the time is right."

In December 2004, Zapatero became the first prime minister to face an Investigative Committee after being interrogated by the Committee created to discover the truth about the March 11 attacks, which has been already mentioned .

Zapatero has announced his intention to undertake limited reforms to the Spanish Constitution (but he has not made clear yet what he wants exactly to reform, how and why) and to legalize same-sex marriage (including giving them adoption rights). That decision and the project of legalizing euthanasia (later withdrawn) together with the changes in the teaching of religion in school and the projects of modifying the financing scheme of the Catholic Church are the main factors in the growing tension between the Socialist government and the Roman Catholic Church. .

Foreign policy

Zapatero claims to favor a multilateral world with the United Nations playing a fundamental role. He has also affirmed his view that a strict respect to international law is essential for keeping peace (clearly in reference to the Iraq war).

Foreign policy is one of the areas where Zapatero differs most from his predecessor José María Aznar. Aznar defended a foreign policy based on two pillars. One of them was a strong alliance with the United States. The other was a peripheral European strategy where Spain would emphasize its friendship with European countries like Italy, the United Kingdom or Poland in order to compensate French and German power. Zapatero has preferred to focus only in two countries in Europe, France and Germany, which would form along with Spain a strong block opposed to American preponderance and aimed at directing Europe destiny.

Following his political creed, Rodríguez Zapatero, soon after winning the election, ordered back home the 1300 Spanish troops in Iraq. The scheduled return date coincided with the beginning of the European Election political campaign (what was not casual according to some critics, as the opposition to Aznar's Iraq policy had been high among Spaniards). The announcement of the withdrawal coincided with a serious growth in the amount of terrorist abductions in Iraq intended to blackmail against the government of the victims' countries.

During the electoral campaign Zapatero had promised to withdraw the troops if control in Iraq was not passed to the United Nations after June 30th (the ending date of the initial Spanish military agreement with the multinational coalition that had overthrown Saddam Hussein). He declared that he did not intend to withdraw the Spanish troops before that date after being questioned about the issue by Mariano Rajoy in his inauguration parliamentary debate.

The decision aroused a high international criticism worldwide, as it was feared that the terrorists could perceive it as a victory obtained thanks to the March 11 attacks. Even the then Democrat candidate for the American Presidency, John Kerry asked Zapatero not to retire the Spanish soldiers. Some months after retiring the troops, the Socialist Government agreed to increase the number of Spanish soldiers in Afghanistan and to send troops to Haiti. It seems that one of the aims of these actions was to show the Spanish Government willingness to spend resources on international missions it approved of.

On June 8 2004 - with the withdrawal already finished, Zapatero's government voted in the UN Security Council in favor of the Resolution 1546 (), that asked all the Member States to send troops to Iraq in order to fight against terrorism and help reconstruct the country. In the text of the resolution it can be read that:

"The Security Council, Recognizing the importance of international support for the people of Iraq in their efforts to achieve security and prosperity , Recognizing that international support for restoration of stability and security is essential to the well-being of the people of Iraq , and welcoming Member State contributions in this regard , Affirming the importance of international assistance in reconstruction and development of the Iraqi economy ,

15. Requests Member States and international and regional organizations to contribute assistance to the multinational force, including military forces, as agreed with the Government of Iraq, to help meet the needs of the Iraqi people for security and stability, humanitarian and reconstruction assistance, and to support the efforts of UNAMI;"

Later, during a visit to Tunisia, he asked all of the countries with troops in Iraq to withdraw their soldiers thus imitating his decision. This declaration moved the U.S. president George W. Bush to send an angry letter to the Spanish premier. Later, the American ambassador to Spain refused to go to the annual National Holiday military parade on October 12 2004 as a response to Zapatero's behavior the previous year.

Zapatero publicly stated his support for John Kerry as a candidate running the American Presidential Election in November 2004. After they took place, Bush never returned Zapatero's congratulation phone call. (The White House firmly denied that Bush's intention was snubbing the Spanish prime minister.) Zapatero has repeatedly insisted that Spain relations with the United States are good.

Another change in Spanish foreign policy was Zapatero's decision to approach extreme left-wing leaders such as Fidel Castro or the President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez. Zapatero has played an important role in the improvement of the relation between the Cuban Communist regime and the European Union.

On the issue of Gibraltar, Zapatero initially took a strong line with the United Kingdom, complaining at Gibraltar's celebrations for the tercentenary of its independence from Spain and rejecting the Gibraltarians' requests for Spain to recognize its right to self-determination. Zapatero's government could have considered those celebrations a provocation that could be showing Britain's wish to make Zapatero "pay" for abandoning Spain's former allies in Iraq.

At the end of 2004, Zapatero decided to change his policy and to become the first Spanish prime minister to accept the participation of Gibraltar as a partner in the same level than Spain and the United Kingdom in the discussions both countries hold regularly about the colony. The decision was criticized as a surrender of the Spanish rights to sovereignty over the British colony by the Spanish opposition. Zapatero justified it as a new way to solve a 300 hundred years old problem.

Regarding the writing of the European Constitution, Zapatero accepted the distribution of power proposed by countries such as Germany and France, abandoning Poland, that had defended until then the same stance than the Spanish People's Party government. That new distribution meant a loss of influence for Spain, but Zapatero accepted it even without any compensation for his country. After signing up the treaty in Rome together with other leaders, he decided to call for a referendum on it, which was held on February 20, 2005. It was the first in Europe (a fact high publicized by Zapatero's government). The turnout was the lowest in Spanish history, only 41%. Of those 75% voted in favor of the European Constitution, which had been defended by the most important parties (including the Socialist Party and the People's Party).

In December 2004, Zapatero, after attending the Parliamentary Investigative Committee about the March 11 terrorist attacks for 15 hours, decided to suspend his meeting with the Polish government, scheduled for the next day in Poland. He argued, literally that "he felt a little tired". Some days later Zapatero was scheduled to meet the Polish Prime Minister in a European summit to be held in Brussels. This meeting did not take place either after the airplane of the Polish leader was said to have suffered an unexpected delay. This added to the already damaged Spanish-Polish relations that had been affected by Zapatero's abandonment of Poland in the talks to draft the European Constitution.

On March 1 2005 he became the first Spanish prime minister to speak to the French National Assembly.

Personal Data

Zapatero married in 1990 with the daughter of a former pro Franco military officer (Rafael Espinosa Armendáriz) called who studied law and is an opera singer. He is father of two girls, Laura (1993) and Alba (1995). He has been the first Spanish prime minister who has not shown his family to the public media, as there exist no available images of his two minor daughters. His wife has never said anything in public (February 2005). He is only fluent in Spanish and has some rough basic knowledge of English. Rodríguez Zapatero is a fan of the Barcelona football team. His favorite sport is basketball.

See also

• History of Spain
• Politics of Spain
• Prime Minister of Spain

External links

• Spanish Socialist Workers' Party
• Extended biography by CIDOB Foundation (in Spanish)
• Biography in Spanish of Zapatero
• Website highly critical of Rodríguez Zapatero
• Copy of the editorial of the Wall Street Journal "The Accidental Prime Minister"

• 1960 births
• Spanish politicians
• Spanish politics