It must be considered that the order from Judge José Luis Calama against José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was made public two days after the Andalusian elections vote. If the judicial document, which has already hit the socialist ranks like a bomb this week, had been known during the election campaign, the setback for candidate María Jesús Montero could have been much greater.
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And the accusations made by Judge Calama against Zapatero are very forceful. However, from what is known so far in the judicial order, there is not yet conclusive evidence against the former president. We must wait for the summary to be revealed, once the secrecy has been lifted, where many of these statements supporting the magistrate’s account should be detailed. This will be the real moment of truth. Whether Zapatero has acted as a lobbyist and whether he and his daughters have received certain amounts of money in exchange for all kinds of reports, or if the former president is part of a corrupt network that has committed influence peddling because, in exchange for these payments, they have influenced government decisions.
Until the details of the case are known, the Government has no choice but to hold its breath and trust in Zapatero’s innocence. The other parties that supported Pedro Sánchez in the investiture are in the same situation. There is the precedent of the former organization secretary, Santos Cerdán: the Government reacted by defending his innocence until the strength of the evidence provided by the investigators forced it to radically change its discourse.
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In this interval, Zapatero has already been condemned by the opposition and many media outlets. The former president is the last barrier to be knocked down for sanchismo to collapse like a house of cards. His political ties with Venezuela and China, which he has never hidden, only increase the discourse against his honorability. We will soon find out.
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