José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has become the fashionable candidate for the PSOE. He is the best active bastion and far from occupying a secondary role as former president, he is the best defender of the socialist flags. At the same time, he is a draw in the electoral campaign.
In the general elections he already showed his commitment to his party and during the negotiations to move forward with the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, and also later during the birth of the amnesty law his role as “mediator has been very important.” Not in vain, the Government recognizes that his figure is on the rise and that “José Luis always adds up.” Furthermore, his relationship with the President of the Government is one of great trust and Zapatero has been the greatest defender of the amnesty when Sánchez received all the criticism of his risky reconciliation policy.
Although he was already involved in the May and general elections, his perennial commitment was confirmed in the Galician elections and now also in the Basque elections. In the most complicated exams, his figure emerges. It was in Galicia when he confirmed that he would once again be an asset for his party. “You already know that I have regained my taste for electoral campaigns,” he confessed at the PSOE convention in La Coruña. There he also rewarded his party at a key moment in national politics – in the middle of the negotiation of the amnesty law – “I am always comfortable at a PSOE event, I am always motivated, always happy,” he said.
Even so, his electoral drive did not find the formula to snatch the PP from its bastion. The popular party swept and the PSOE lost five seats, remaining at nine, its worst result in history. Now, in the Basque Country, his objective is still fully in force. This Friday he accompanied the socialist candidate Eneko Andueza at the first campaign event. The PSOE sees an electoral ticket in his figure when analyzing that he has a pull among socialist militants and they value the fact that he is a “great asset of the PSOE.” In the party they recognize that they turn to him and assure that he “is always available.” In the Catalan elections, his role will also be important and he will travel to support the first secretary of the PSC. He already traveled to the community coinciding with the electoral announcement, to support the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, in the congress that ratified him as a candidate for the Generalitat. There he defended the amnesty and tried to mobilize the electorate to win against the independence movement at the polls.
Support for the PES
Precisely, yesterday from Irún he defended the socialist acronym in a land as symbolic as the Basque Country, marked by the horror of ETA. “Whenever I come to Euskadi I think about violence and peace, terror and hope. “It will accompany me all my life, it is the deepest feeling I have ever had,” said the former president of the Government. He also defended the international role of the President of the Government, who has recently traveled to the Middle East to learn more about the context of war and defend the two-state solution as a way to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine. “The Spain of democracy, freedom and exemplary in the defense of peace is, and will be, a leader in the peaceful solution of the two conflicts,” he said.
At the electoral rally he unparalleledly defended the vote for the PSE in the Basque Country. “The more I vote for Eneko and PSOE Euskadi, with all the peace, the more time will be gained for modernization and energy transition, digitalization to win the battle in Euskadi. For this land to win, that is voting for the PSE.”