Family background and early life José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was born in
Valladolid, Castile and León, to Juan Rodríguez y García-Lozano (born 1928), a lawyer, and María de la Purificación Zapatero Valero (1927–2000). He grew up in
León, where his family originated. His paternal grandfather, Juan Rodríguez y Lozano (1893–1936), was a
captain in the
Spanish Republican Army; he was executed by
Francisco Franco's
Nationalist forces a month into the
Spanish Civil War, for refusing to fight with them. His whereabouts were revealed by fascists in Valladolid. His maternal grandfather, Faustino Valentín Zapatero Ballesteros (1899–1978), was a
paediatrician and middle class liberal. His maternal grandmother María de la Natividad Valero y Asensio (1902–2006) was a conservative and died at age 103. Zapatero was born in Valladolid not only because of his mother's attachment to her family, who lived there, but also because of the medical profession of her father. Zapatero has said that, as a youngster, "as I remember it, I used to participate in late night conversations with my father and brother about politics, law or literature". However, he did not get along very well with his father at times. Sources say that his father refused to let him work or take any part in his law firm, and this scarred him for life. He says that his family taught him to be tolerant, thoughtful, prudent and austere. The memory of Zapatero's grandfather was also kept alive by a last
will, handwritten 24 hours before facing the firing squad, and which can be considered a final declaration of principles. The will comprised six parts, the first three bestowing his possessions on his heirs; the fourth, in which he asked for a civil burial and, the fifth, in which he requested his family to forgive those who had tried and executed him and proclaiming his belief in the
Supreme Being. In the sixth, Zapatero's grandfather asked his family to clear his name in the future as his creed consisted only in his "love for peace, for good and for improving the living conditions of the lower classes". According to an Israeli newspaper,
Maariv, by Zapatero's own statement: "My family, named Zapatero, is of Jewish descent", probably from a family of
Marranos. He is an agnostic. He studied law at the
University of León, graduating in 1982. His performance as a student was above average before his pre-University year. According to his brother Juan: "He didn't study much but it made no difference, he continued successfully". After graduating, Zapatero worked as a teaching assistant in constitutional law at the University of León until 1986 (he continued working some hours a week without pay until 1991). It was subsequently found that he had been appointed by his department without the usual selection process involving interviews and competitive examinations, which if true, constitutes a case of political favouritism. Matilde Fernández was the candidate of the
guerristas while José Bono was the candidate of the
reformers. Rosa Díez was a Basque politician who was a kind of intermediate option at the time. Zapatero was a
dark horse who had against him his inexperience and in favour his image of reform and being the only MP among the candidates. (All the Spanish opposition leaders had been MPs before winning the elections. A very important factor in Spanish politics where electoral campaigns last for only 15 days and to be widely known long before they begin is essential.) Bono was deeply disliked by the
guerristas, who also favoured Zapatero. Zapatero finally won by a relatively small margin (he obtained 414 votes out of 995 and José Bono obtained 405) on 22 July 2000. The margin was relatively small because Bono had no likelihood of winning since the supporters of the other two candidates preferred Zapatero as their second choice. Zapatero accepted the cancellation of a run-off between himself and Bono because he was sure of his victory after only one ballot and he apparently did not want to humiliate his adversary. After becoming Secretary General, he was congratulated by the French PM
Lionel Jospin, by the German Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder and by José María Aznar. He moved to
Madrid with his family that year. As a Congressman he had lived from Monday to Thursday in Madrid and the rest of the time in León.
Opposition leader This was the period when Zapatero was appointed as Secretary General of the PSOE in 2000 until he became
Prime Minister of Spain on 14 April 2004. Zapatero has always claimed to base his political activity on his love of dialogue. When he was an opposition leader, he liked to contrast his behaviour with the "arrogant", "authoritarian" approach of the People's Party and, especially, that of its leader José María Aznar. As a result, after being appointed Secretary General, he coined the term
Calm Opposition () to refer to his opposition strategy. The
Calm Opposition was supposedly based on an "open to dialogue", "soft", "constructive" attitude (
talante constructivo, coined as
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
Bambi or
Sosoman (where
Soso, meaning "dull, insipid, bore", replaces
Super in
Superman), especially in the first months after being appointed General Secretary. After his election to the leadership of the PSOE, Zapatero spoke about the influence of the political philosophy of
civic republicanism on him in general, and in particular the ideas of republican political philosopher
Philip Pettit. In an interview with
El Mundo, Zapatero linked civic republicanism's focus on
civic virtue to tolerance of individual autonomy and expanding political participation. During Zapatero's years as an opposition leader (and later as prime minister), the tension between left-wing and right-wing supporters increased and, according to some opinions, a real radicalization of the society took (and is taking) place . Zapatero's supporters blame his opponents for that and the People's Party blames him stating facts such as the increase in the acts of violence committed against them, especially in the months before and during the
war in Iraq. As a result, a new term has become popular:
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. Zapatero's criticisms of the government were very active from the beginning, blaming the government for its inability to control the rise in the price of
fossil fuel and asking for a reduction in the corresponding taxes. In 2000, the British
nuclear submarine arrived at
Gibraltar harbour to have its
nuclear reactor repaired. Aznar affirmed that there was no risk for the population but Zapatero criticized him for his inability to force the British government to take the submarine to another harbour. After almost one year, the
Tireless was repaired and left Gibraltar without having caused any known problems. 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. The scheme had received support from, among others, 80% of the affected farmers and the Socialist regional governments of regions such as
Extremadura, Andalusia or
Castilla-La Mancha. 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 former president of the European Parliament. The scheme was mainly opposed by Zapatero, environmentalist groups, the Socialist regional government of
Aragon and some of the citizens of the areas from which water was to be transferred. The main criticisms of 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). The scheme, finally approved by the Government, was canceled by Zapatero soon after becoming prime minister. Zapatero was the main proponent of the "Pacto de las Libertades contra el Terrorismo" ("Anti Terrorist Freedom pact) which was signed on 8 December 2000. At the end of the year, the
Mad Cow disease came back into the spotlight after its outbreak in 1996. Zapatero repeatedly criticized the Government's management of the crisis arguing that it was out of control. As of March 2005, the disease had caused dozens of deaths all over Europe, though none in Spain. In 2001 one of the biggest points of friction between the government and the opposition were the proposed reforms affecting the education system. The People's Party first introduced the so-called LOU, a law to change the university system, and later the LOCE (
Organic Act for Education Quality), which affected secondary education. Zapatero strongly opposed both. The People's Party used its absolute majority in the
Cortes to pass its reforms. A regional election was held in the
Basque Country on 13 May 2001. The socialists received 17.8% of the vote (against 17.6% in the previous 1998 elections) but lost one seat. Both, the Socialist Party and the People's Party had formed an alliance against the then ruling nationalist Basque political movements but the latter won again. The results were considered a failure.
Nicolás Redondo Terreros, the Basque Socialist leader during the election who was strongly opposed to Basque nationalism and to
ETA, resigned after some internal clashes, resigning his seat in the Basque parliament and in the Federal Executive. He was replaced by
Patxi López, elected on 24 March 2002. López had actively supported Zapatero during his campaign to become Secretary General. On 21 October 2001 a new regional election took place, this time in
Galicia. The People's Party, led in Galicia by
Manuel Fraga Iribarne, obtained a new absolute majority. The Socialist party increased its number of seats from 15 to 17, but, after several years of opposition the results were also considered bad. These two negative results seemed to confirm that Zapatero's approach was not working. On 19 December 2001 Zapatero travelled to
Morocco, after the Moroccan government expelled the Spanish ambassador
sine die.
Javier Arenas, then secretary general of the People's Party, accused him of not being loyal to Spanish interests. Zapatero denied it and claimed that one of his purposes was to help solve the crisis. In 2002, Zapatero was chosen as the Socialist candidate for the next general election. 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 those who were eligible for unemployment benefits. 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 (dubbed the
Decretazo, because it was passed using a decree-law), which served him as his first important clash with Aznar's government. A General Strike was announced for 20 June 2002 (the first since Aznar won the election in 1996). Although, according to official data (including the electrical power consumption and the number of working days calculated by the Social Security), the turnout was lower than 15%, the lowest since the restoration of democracy, neither the unions nor Zapatero believed the data and considered the strike a resounding success, with more than "10 million" workers having followed the strike. Whatever the result, both the People's Party government and the trade unions signed an agreement that satisfied both parties in November. In May 2002, Felipe González declared in reference to the change in the Socialist Party that "My state of mind tells me that a change has taken place, that perhaps a second Suresnes has happened, but it has yet to be proved that a new project with content and ideas really exists", thus doubting Zapatero's leadership. That declaration was expressed in a public event also attended by Zapatero, who calmly expressed his disagreement. González ended his intervention by remembering that his candidate for Secretary General was
José Bono, not Zapatero. González backtracked the next day, declaring that either his words had been incorrectly construed or he had expressed his ideas erroneously. José Bono himself confirmed his total support for Zapatero. The incident seemed to confirm that Zapatero's strategy was not working. On 22 October 2002 Zapatero spoke in the name of the Socialist Party during the debate about the National Budget. Initially,
Jordi Sevilla was to have been the Socialist spokesman but, at the last moment, he was replaced in a surprise move. When Jordi Sevilla, after being called by the speaker, had already descended to the floor of the Congress of Deputies, Zapatero said to him "let me do it" and climbed to the orator platform. José María Aznar and other members of the People's Party had previously criticized him for not representing his party in the debate, suggesting a lack of the necessary political skills. Although the People's Party considered his action too theatrical, it seems it had quite a positive effect on his supporters. In November 2002, the oil tanker
Prestige suffered an accident in international waters off the coast of
Galicia causing a grave oil slick which mainly affected Galicia, but also, to a lesser degree all the northern coast of Spain, and even the coast of France. The
Prestige finally split and sank. Zapatero blamed the Government's handling of the events during and after the accident. The main point of friction between Aznar and Zapatero, however, was the war in Iraq. Opinion polls showed that a clear majority of Spanish voters (around 90%) were against the U.S.-led attack against
Saddam Hussein's regime. Among them, Zapatero who considered any action against Saddam's regime to be illegal and was opposed to the very concept of
preemptive war. On 26 May 2003 a
Yakovlev Yak-42 plane carrying Spanish soldiers home from
Afghanistan crashed in
Turkey. The plane had been hired by an agency of
NATO. Zapatero blamed Aznar and his government for neglecting aspects like the plane insurance or safety. Further, Aznar had rejected calls for a full inquiry into the crash. After the 2004 March elections it was proven that there had been serious irregularities in the identification of the corpses resulting in a high number of mistakes. Concerning the
European Constitution, Zapatero criticized the People's Party Government for fighting to preserve the distribution of power agreed by the 2001
Treaty of Nice in the new Constitution. Zapatero thought that Spain should accept a lesser share of power. On 25 May 2003, the
first local and regional elections since Zapatero's appointment as leader of the Socialist party were held. The Socialist Party received a larger popular vote (which prompted Zapatero to claim his party had been the winner) but the People's Party obtained more posts in councils and regional governments. In general, there were not many changes in the results compared to those of the previous Elections held in 1999. The Socialists lost the
Balearic Islands but got enough votes in
Madrid to govern through a coalition with the communists of the
United Left. The "victory" was welcomed by Zapatero, as the winner in Madrid had always won the next general election. However, an unexpected scandal, the so-called Madrid Assembly Scandal, negatively affected the socialist expectations of a victory in 2004. After the Madrid election, the People's Party lacked two seats to obtain an absolute majority. This seemed to allow an alliance of Socialists and the United Left to seize power. But an unexpected event happened. Eduardo Tamayo and María Teresa Sáez, two Socialist Assembly Members (AMs) angry at the distribution of power in the future regional government between the United Left and the Socialist Party, started a crisis that led to a re-run of the Election in Madrid in October 2003 with the subsequent victory of the People's Party. Zapatero did not accept the account of the Socialist AMs and tried to explain it as a conspiratorial plot caused by speculative interests of the house building industry that would have bribed the AMs to prevent a left-wing government. The People's Party, on the other hand, defended the theory that the anger of the two Socialist AMs was caused by Zapatero's broken promise about the referred distribution of power within the Madrid section of the Socialist Party. That promise would have been made some months before the crisis in exchange of support for one of his more immediate collaborators (
Trinidad Jiménez), who wanted to become the Socialist candidate for mayor of Madrid (the Spanish capital). Zapatero's team had entered into contact with José Luis Balbás through Enrique Martínez and
Jesús Caldera (then Minister of Labor) In April 2000, Zapatero, Caldera and José Blanco had had lunch with Eduardo Tamayo in a restaurant in Madrid. Tamayo would later become a representative of Zapatero in the 35th party national conference. At the end of the month "Renovadores de la Base" (the faction of Tamayo and Balbás) decided to support Zapatero and the later agreed to be part of Zapatero's team. He played an important role during Zapatero's promotion. For example, Balbás together with
José Blanco controlled the list of delegates. During the Debate over the State of the Nation, an annual debate that takes place in the
Spanish Congress of Deputies, Zapatero was harshly criticised by José María Aznar on account of the scandal. For the first time, the opinion polls showed that most Spaniards believed that the then Spanish Prime Minister had been the winner (Zapatero had always been considered the winner since his first debate in 2001). Later, in October, a regional election took place in Catalonia, whose results were worse than expected for the Socialist Party. As most of the
Autonomous communities of Spain hold the elections to their assemblies the same day, with the exception of
Andalusia, Catalonia,
Galicia and the
Basque Country, coinciding with the municipal elections all over Spain, the results are hugely significant. On 16 November 2003, the regional election for the
Assembly of Catalonia was held. Two days before, Zapatero had predicted a historic victory for the
Socialists' Party of Catalonia and the beginning of the People's Party defeat. The Socialist Party won the election in popular vote but CiU obtained more MPs due to the electoral law. The final results were 46 seats for
Convergence and Union (CiU) (ten fewer than in 1999, the year of the previous election), 42 for the Socialist Party (ten fewer), 15 for the People's Party (three more), 9 for
Iniciativa per Catalunya-Verds and 23 (nine more) for the
Republican Left of Catalonia. Zapatero attributed the bad results to the consequences of the crisis of Madrid. However, Maragall became the President of the Regional Government after a Pact with Republican Left of Catalonia and Iniciativa per Catalunya-Verds. That alliance resulted in another setback for the Socialist Party when the Spanish newspaper
ABC published an article stating that Josep-Lluís
Carod-Rovira, leader of Republican Left of Catalonia, had met some
ETA members secretly in January 2004. According to
ABC, Carod-Rovira had promised to provide ETA with political support if the group did not act in Catalonia, which seemed to have been confirmed by the ETA announcement of a truce affecting only that region some months later, before the general election of 2004. Carod-Rovira resigned as vice president of the Catalan government, but continued to be the leader of his party. The scandal damaged Zapatero's image, as ETA and political violence are controversial issues in Spain and Carod-Rovira's party was seen as a possible ally if Zapatero won the election. At end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004 the Spanish political parties started to prepare themselves for the
general election of 2004. All of the opinion polls elaborated at the time foreseen a defeat for Zapatero, as they always predicted a new victory for the People's Party.
The 2004 general election The campaign for the General Election started a fortnight before 14 March 2004. Polls favoured the
People's Party, with some polls predicting a possible repeat of their absolute majority. Previously, on 8 January 2004, Zapatero had created a Committee of Notables composed of 10 highly qualified experts with considerable political weight. Its mission was to help him to become prime minister. Among its members:
José Bono (his ex-rival for the Secretaryship of the party and later appointed Minister of Defence),
Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra (president of the regional government of
Extremadura and one of the most important socialist leaders),
Miguel Ángel Moratinos (his minister of foreign affairs 2004–2010),
Gregorio Peces-Barba (later appointed by him High Commissioner for the Victims of Terrorism, although he has already made public his resignation),
Carmen Calvo (later appointed minister of culture), etc. Ten days later, on 18 January 2004, Zapatero announced that he would only become prime minister if the Spanish Socialist Workers Party received a plurality, renouncing possible parliamentary alliances in advance if that situation did not happen after the election. Minority parties (especially
United Left, a communist party) criticized the decision, for they considered it an attempt to attract their own voters, who would rather ensure a defeat of the People's Party even at the expense of voting for an unfavorable party. Zapatero's slogan became "we deserve a better Spain", which was coupled with "Zapatero Presidente", or "(ZP)", which became a popular nickname of the then Spanish Prime Minister. ;Campaign promises • 180,000 new houses every year to buy or to rent • Preservation of a balanced budget with no deficit but with a more flexible approach than that of the People's Party •
Bilingual education (English and Spanish, together with the official regional language in the areas where it existed) • A computer for every two students • A two-year maximum for legal processes or financial compensation • Further investment in research and development • Make the
state-owned television company more independent from the government by making its director answerable to parliament, etc.). During the campaign, Zapatero harshly criticized the People's Party for its management of the
Prestige crisis, its attitude towards the invasion of
Iraq and the high cost of housing.
Mariano Rajoy, the new leader of the People's Party after
Aznar's voluntary retirement, on his part, attacked Zapatero's foreseeable future alliances with parties like United Left or Republican Left of Catalonia (a pro-Independence Catalan party). One of the most important points of friction was the absence of televised debates between the candidates. Zapatero was the first to propose a debate to Mariano Rajoy. 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) and
Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira (leader of
Republican Left of 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's policies. Zapatero never formally responded to this proposal and throughout the campaign he continued criticizing what he always defined as Rajoy's reluctance to defend his political program face-to-face. (Zapatero has promised to change electoral law to make televised debates compulsory.) On 11 March 2004 the most deadly peacetime
attacks in Spanish history took place. Several commuter trains were bombed, causing 191 deaths and 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. The People's Party government and Zapatero (who accused ETA in a radio statement broadcast at 8:50 am), initially claimed the attacks to be the work of ETA, an armed
Basque nationalist separatist organization. Later, after an audiotape in Arabic was found in a van near a railway station where the perpetrators boarded one of the trains, Aznar declared that all of the possibilities were being investigated. The government was accused of manipulating information about who was responsible for the attacks to avoid the consequences of public anger at a bombing motivated by its foreign policy – Aznar personally phoned the editors of the four national daily newspapers to tell them that ETA were responsible, whilst Minister of the Interior
Ángel Acebes attacked those who believed that responsibility lay elsewhere, despite not offering any evidence for ETA's culpability, and the state broadcaster
TVE initially failed to report the protest outside the Popular Party's headquarters which ran through the night before the day of the election. Zapatero himself has repeatedly accused the Popular Party of lying about those who were responsible for the attacks. On the other hand, the book
11-M. La venganza by Casimiro Abadillo, a Spanish journalist who works for the newspaper
El Mundo, claims that, before the General Election, Zapatero had told that newspaper's director, Pedro J. Ramirez, that two
suicide bombers had been found among the victims (although the specialists that examined the bodies said they found no such evidence). 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. The campaign had ended abruptly two days before it was expected to convene as a result of the bombings. The day before the elections – in this case 13 March 2004 – is considered to be a "Day of Reflection" under Spanish electoral law, with candidates and their parties legally barred from political campaigning. Despite this prohibition, numerous demonstrations took place against the government of José María Aznar in front of the premises of the People's Party all over Spain. There were some claims that most of these demonstrations were instigated or orchestrated by the Socialist Party, through the use of SMS text messaging from mobile phones belonging to the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party publicly denied these accusations. As the demonstrations escalated, Mariano Rajoy himself appeared on national TV to denounce the illegal demonstrations. In reply, both José Blanco and Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba broke the silence from the Socialist Party's side, in separate appearances. In the end both sides accused each other of breaking the electoral law on reflection day. In this climate of social unrest and post-attack shock, the
elections were held on 14 March 2004. Zapatero's Socialist Party won the elections, with 164 seats in the Cortes, while 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 and the informative coverage by the different media and political parties. He took office on 17 April. An important point of controversy is if the purpose of the Madrid attacks were to force a Socialist victory; at issue as well was that, if that was the case, whether they succeeded in altering the final result. This has been called the "4 March theory" (that is, if the election had been scheduled for 7 March, the attacks would have taken place on 4 March) by Aznar, among others. No definitive data exists in favour 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 15 March 2004 was: 'Who won the election?'. How the bombing influenced the results is widely debated. The three schools of thought are: • The attacks themselves might have changed the electoral winner. A sufficient number of voters suddenly decided to vote for the Socialist party because they thought that if it won, Islamist terrorism would be placated. • The handling of the attacks by the government, rather than the attacks themselves, might have changed the electoral winner. People who had the perception that the information about the attacks was being manipulated decided to vote the Socialist party as a response. • The attacks might have changed the result but not the winner. The Socialist Party was going to win but with fewer votes. (Despite this claim, most polls before the attacks gave a victory to
Mariano Rajoy.) The theory that the bombing affected the result is a
counterfactual that cannot be verified. As elections in European states hinge on social and economic policies mainly, it is equally possible the terrorist events had no notable effect. In this regard, a majority of 74% of the Spanish people were against Spanish involvement in the war. On 13 June 2004 (three months after the General Election) the Election for the
European Parliament took place. The Socialist Party tied with 25 seats vs 25 for the People's Party (out of 54), but narrowly won in popular vote. Although
José Borrell was the official candidate, Zapatero played an important role in that campaign (as is usual in Spain). == Premiership ==