José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

Prime Minister of Spain
Incumbent
Assumed office 17 April 2004

Monarch Juan Carlos I

Vice President María Teresa Fernández de la Vega

Preceded by José María Aznar

Born 4 August 1960 (age 49)
Valladolid, Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain

Political party PSOE

Spouse(s) Sonsoles Espinosa (m. 1990)

Children Laura (b.1993), Alba (b. 1995)

Residence Palacio de la Moncloa, Madrid

Religion Agnosticism
Signature

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero[1] (born 4 August 1960, Valladolid),[2] better known by his maternal surname Zapatero or ZP, is the current President of the Government of Spain (Presidente del Gobierno de España[1] in Spanish). Zapatero has won two consecutive elections, the first in 2004, and again in 2008,[1] after his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) won a plurality of seats in the Spanish Congress of Deputies.

Personal life and youth

Origins and youth
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was born in Valladolid to Juan Rodríguez y García-Lozano (b. 1928), a lawyer, and María de la Purificación Zapatero y Valero (Valladolid, 1927 - Madrid, 30 October 2000). He grew up in León, where his family originated.[3]
His paternal grandfather, Juan Rodríguez y Lozano (28 July 1893 - Puente Castro, León, 18 August 1936), was a Republican captain executed by Franco’s National army a month into the Spanish Civil War for refusing to fight with them.[4] He was betrayed and his whereabouts were revealed by certain PSOE people in Valladolid, before Rodriguez Zapatero was born.[5]
His maternal grandfather, Faustino Zapatero y Coronel, was a pediatrician and middle class liberal who died in 1978. His maternal grandmother María de la Natividad Valero y Asensio (Zamora, 9 December 1902 - Valladolid, 28 June 2006) was a right-wing conservative and died at age 103.[6] Zapatero was born in Valladolid not only because of his mother’s attachment to her family, who lived there, but also because of the medical profession of her father.
Zapatero has said that, as a youngster, “as I remember it, I used to participate in late night conversations with my father and brother about politics, law or literature”.[7] He says that his family taught him to be “tolerant, thoughtful, prudent and austere”.[8]
The memory of Republican Captain Lozano was also kept alive by his last will, handwritten 24 hours before facing the firing squad, and which can be considered a final declaration of principles. The will comprised six parts, the first three bestowing his possessions on his heirs; the fourth, in which he asked for a civil burial and, the fifth, in which he requested his family to forgive those who had tried and executed him and proclaiming his belief in the Supreme Being. In the sixth, Zapatero’s grandfather asked his family to clear his name in the future as his creed consisted only in his “love for peace, for good and for improving the living conditions of the lower classes”.[9]
He studied Law at the University of León, graduating in 1982. His performance as a student was above average before his pre-University year. His grades later in the year and in the University were essentially mediocre. According to his brother Juan: “He didn’t study much but it made no difference, he continued successfully”.[10]
After graduating, Zapatero worked as a teaching assistant in constitutional law at the University of León until 1986 (he continued working some hours a week without pay until 1991). It was subsequently found that he had been appointed by his department without the usual selection process involving interviews and competitive examinations, which if true, constitutes a case of political favouritism.[4] He has declared that the only activity that attracts him besides politics is teaching or, at most, academic research.[11]
Rodríguez Zapatero met his wife, Sonsoles Espinosa in León in 1981. They married on 27 January 1990 and have two daughters named Laura (b. 1993) and Alba (b. 1995).
In October 1991, his contract was cancelled by the new rector of the University of León, Julio César Santoyo, after the University’s legal advisers considered Zapatero’s posts as a teaching assistant and an MP to be incompatible (he had been elected in 1986). The Spanish Parliament’s counselors, however, had considered the contract valid.[citation needed]
Zapatero did not do the military service which was compulsory in Spain: he received successive deferments because of his conditions as a university student and a teaching assistant. As an MP he was finally exempted.[12]
Zapatero enters politics
Zapatero attended his first political rally, organized by the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) in Gijón in 1976. Some political parties had been legal since 21 July 1976, but the PSOE was not legalized until February 1977. The speech of Felipe González, the PSOE leader and future Prime Minister of Spain, who took part in the rally, exerted an important influence on Zapatero. He said, among other things, that “the Socialists’ goal was the seizure of power by the working class to transform the ownership of the means of production” and that “the PSOE was a revolutionary party but not revolutionarist or aventurist [...], as it defended the use of elections to come to power”.[13]