Since general elections were called more than a month ago, former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has taken part in the PSOE pre-campaign and has not hesitated to defend the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in several interviews. Zapatero assured this morning that he decided “not to shut up” when he heard the tone of the PP after the municipal elections and decided “that he could not consent to it.” “There is nothing worse than opposing a Spaniard to Spain,” said the former president in an interview with Hoy por Hoy.
Zapatero has justified his defense of the president by assuring that if he asked that they do it for him -when he was president-, he must do it now. In this same sense, the former socialist leader has claimed that Sánchez “has spent more time governing than defending himself against such unfounded criticism” but has admitted that now “you have to talk much more and be everywhere”
The former president of the government has regretted that some of the latest interviews that Pedro Sánchez has attended are “debate interviews”, and that “they do not ask him any questions about the economy or employment”. “It’s strange,” he added.
Zapatero has valued “with relativism” the latest CIS poll that gives an absolute majority to a PSOE-Sumar coalition. “The CIS surveys have failed, denying it would be absurd,” said the former president. However, Zapatero faces the general elections with optimism and has appealed to “the majority of citizens who want a democracy without censorship or discrimination.”
According to the former leader of the PSOE, his nose “tells him that the democratic country, an example of freedoms in the world, is going to prevail and win over a country that has a reactionary, denialist alternative.”
The words of Felipe González in an article in which he defended that the list with the most votes should govern has generated a debate to which the president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, joined in the same line as González. On this subject, Zapatero has remarked that one must “be aware”, because “words have to be worth a little after what we have seen in Extremadura”. The former president of the government has recalled that if Feijóo’s idea were applied, the PSOE would govern in towns like Extremadura. In addition, he added that “the only party in Parliament that abstained for the PP to govern was the PSOE with a significant internal tear, something that neither corresponded nor was there reciprocity.”
Zapatero has asked Feijóo for “seriousness and respect for the PSOE” after the popular leader assured that he would call the PSOE barons to convince them of a possible abstention. “Maybe Feijóo is in for a surprise,” he added. In addition, he has also made reference to the words of the president of the PP about the Vox leader convicted of violence and has stated that “there are no harsh divorces, there is criminal machismo.”
The former president of the government has continued with his criticism of the Popular Party and has stated that after losing the 2004 elections “they digest it very badly.” Zapatero has assured that they are preparing the ground to brand another possible government of Sánchez as illegitimate, recalling that in his term they spent “years discussing the attack with the sole objective of doubting the legitimacy of the President.” “It is a constant because when they oppose they only try to destroy, they do not present an alternative and even less a collaboration,” Zapatero pointed out.
Lastly, the ex-secretary general of the PSOE has reaffirmed that “it is unquestionable” that the end of ETA occurred “under my Government”. “Please, let’s not discuss the indisputable”, added Zapatero after hearing Rajoy’s words in which he assured that “no government” put an end to ETA, but that “Spanish society” did.
