Madrid is a city very given to rumourology. Characters are valued for their proximity to power, or rather to powers. There are those who always have the doors of the Zarzuela open. There are those who have those of the skyscrapers of the Ibex-35 open. And there are those who have the doors of Moncloa open. Then there are a few who have all the doors open. It’s hard today In a conversation about the moment that the Government of Pedro Sánchez is going through, the name of one of his predecessors did not come up: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
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His mediation capacity with United We Can has been known for a long time, both in times of Iglesias and now with Yolanda Díaz. Part of his team in the PSOE is now in the Moncloa kitchen. And his tentacles are more than evident in the communication apparatus of the PSOE and Moncloa. There is your former Secretary of State for Communication Miguel Barroso, at the top of a large information medium. And so many others. Put to see the shadow of Zapatero, the last maneuver that is attributed to him is the relief in the presidency of RTVE. They even relate him to the consultant who was his right-hand man, Pepe Blanco.
In many democratic countries it is common for former presidents to be court advisers to those in power. They are supposed to have experience, contacts, wisdom. Another thing is that this presence is more or less transparent in the eyes of public opinion. The rumor mill sometimes hides the reality and other times what it does in magnifying the trifles. Time will tell if in the case of Zapatero’s weight in Sánchez’s politics it is more the former or the latter. Be that as it may, it seems evident that after the break between Sánchez and Iván Redondo the ideas reach the president of the Government of the world of his predecessor. This would explain a certain relaxation with Podemos and the aversion to any type of pact with the PP. And also some movements of the barons who, like Ximo Puig, are not willing to receive the first slap in the face of Sánchez’s swings. The gatherings in Madrid do not solve most of these unknowns but the climate that is being created, despite the fact that the objective conditions are different, is very similar to that withdrawal in stages precisely by Zapatero in 2011.