Vaquero was born in
Madrid on 21 May 1986 and raised in the outskirt town of
Pozuelo de Alarcón and the district of
Moncloa-Aravaca. He was a childhood neighbour of politician
Íñigo Errejón. Raised by conservative parents, he joined the
Communist Party of Spain (PCE) at age 16. Vaquero graduated in political sciences from the
Complutense University of Madrid, where one of his lecturers was
Pablo Iglesias Turrión, later founder of the left-wing party
Podemos. Vaquero reflected in 2019 that he disliked Iglesias and labeled Iglesias as a "
postmodernist" who he saw as no different to the centre-left
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), alleging that Iglesias denied the existence of
class war. In 2016, Vaquero was held in prison for 49 days before paying €6,000 in bail. He was accused of possession of explosives and membership of a criminal organisation collaborating with the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is classed as a terrorist organisation in Spain. In October 2018, the
Audiencia Nacional acquitted him of membership of a criminal organisation and of explosives offences, while rejecting a request from the
Prosecution Ministry to ban his party, which had been suspended from activities during the legal process. He was convicted in the first instance of membership of a criminal group and weapons offences, and sentenced to two years and three months. In 2020, the
Supreme Court of Spain reduced his sentence by one year, and as of December 2021 he was awaiting the result of his appeal to the
Constitutional Court of Spain. ==Political views==