MadridAlong with the news about the case opened at the National High Court, these days it has been impossible for me not to remember the close relationship I had with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero a quarter of a century ago, when he decided to run as a candidate for the general secretary of the PSOE. It was June 2000, and that 40-year-old, almost unknown deputy did not have all the guarantees that he would win. Indirectly, he received the help of Alfonso Guerra, who promoted the presentation of the former minister Matilde Fernández to divide the vote and make it difficult for José Bono, former president of Castilla-La Mancha, to win. The fourth candidate was Rosa Díez, who would later found another party, now defunct: Unión, Progreso y Democracia (UPyD).
When the delegates of the XXXV Federal Congress of the PSOE were voting, my mobile phone rang. It was Zapatero's father. He wanted to know if the vote count had started. I explained that there would surely be a close result, but that I did not dare to say who would achieve victory. The fight was between Zapatero and Bono. There was a few seconds of silence, and finally he asked me another question. “But you Catalans, you support us, don't you?”. He sounded tense, and to reduce that feeling I answered him: “Well, I don't know about all of you; you know I don't vote.” I insisted that I was not sure of the result, that possibly his son would receive a majority support from the PSC delegates, although perhaps not unanimous.
Finally, Zapatero won by a difference of nine votes. Bono congratulated him immediately. And, later, he even became part of the government, once the PSOE regained power, after the eight years of the Aznar cycle. In the post-socialist congress stage, Zapatero's father's question made perfect sense. The new socialist leader did not always agree with Pasqual Maragall, despite the commitment –which the PP always reproached him for– that he acquired to support the reform of the Statute proposed from Catalonia. The other day, hearing Gabriel Rufián in the hemicycle of the Congress, I remembered it again, especially when the spokesperson for Esquerra attributed to Zapatero the release from prison, once the pardons were granted, of “five of ours”.
Against Maragall
The operation of the new Statute did not go well, especially due to the Constitutional Court's ruling in 2010. But it had not gone very well in the Congress either, where it was already cut back. However, Zapatero always worked for understanding, even though he did not want to go as fast as Maragall. On one occasion, the latter reminded him in a PSOE federal committee that he owed him a lot, to the PSC. Zapatero answered him kindly, but that same afternoon he began to call various party leaders to ask them to prepare to slow down Maragall.
This happened after Bono hesitated whether or not to join the government. As I also had a good relationship with him, he called me one fine day to ask me how his entry into the executive would be interpreted. He was concerned, precisely, that Zapatero would be willing to concede too much to Catalonia's demands. Bono, in his memoirs, explains that conversation quite well. I replied that if he wanted not to be considered prone to those hypothetical concessions, what he had to do was precisely to join the government to participate in the debate. And he did: he accepted the portfolio of Defense, not Interior, the first option that Zapatero put on the table.
Knowing the intricacies of that period, it did not surprise me at all that Pedro Sánchez used, years later, Zapatero's collaboration to reconnect with the Catalan nationalist world, then already reconverted to independence. The current leader of the PSOE was against the amnesty. This 180-degree turn was a dangerous maneuver, which had to begin with the first step: the pardon. It is understandable that the socialists consider it a catastrophe to have first lost Santos Cerdán for negotiations with Puigdemont, and that Zapatero is now also left by the wayside. The opposition mocks the supposed “moral compass” that the former president of the government represents for the PSOE. But his main role was to work for electoral mobilization and to act as a bridge with independence. Considering the hypercritical role that Felipe González had taken on in this area, Zapatero had placed himself in a counterbalancing strategy, very useful for Sánchez.
It is entirely logical – and not only for this reason – that the PSOE wishes to rely on the fact that Zapatero will be able to explain that he has not been the head of a criminal organization engaged in influence peddling. The fact, in any case, is that the former president of the government will face an authentic match point next Tuesday, June 2nd, the day on which, from nine in the morning, he will appear before the National Court before the judge who has charged him, José Luis Calama. His immediate personal future depends on how the statement goes, on whether he can convince the magistrate that his conduct has had nothing to do with the leadership of a corruption scheme. Certainly, he does not have it easy. The investigating judge accuses him of having benefited from two million euros, with the participation of his two daughters, through influence peddling, especially in relation to the rescue of the airline Plus Ultra, an operation that initially cost 53 million euros in the form of a loan, of which 12 million have been recovered.
It remains to be seen what the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office does, but it is very likely that among the various popular accusations there will be one that requests his imprisonment. The other possibility is that one of the parties requests the withdrawal of his passport and periodic appearances before the Court to reduce a hypothetical risk of flight. The defense, obviously, will dedicate its strategy to achieving the dismissal of the case, which is highly improbable today. Judge Calama will have to move within this margin – a very broad one – of action. With the peculiarity that, to decide whether to take any precautionary measure, he must issue an order in which he must set out the reasons for his decision, in this case with special detail due to the obvious relevance of the matter and taking into account the interest with which public opinion follows the evolution of this case. The ball is in the air, but it seems that the match point is already decided.
