By David Rey
02 June 2026
The indictment of former Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for influence peddling and money laundering has stirred up a huge political storm. This comes on top of a cascade of legal initiatives by the state apparatus aimed at cornering the government of the present Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez.
The right wing has launched a full-scale attack, deploying all its media and political resources, to link Sánchez to Zapatero and the other open legal cases, in order to force the government’s downfall and bring forward the general elections. The motto of the ruling class seems to be: now or never.
[The full version of this article was originally published on comunistasrevolucionarios.org, website of the RCI in the Spanish state]
The case against Zapatero
The legal case against Zapatero is being handled by the judge of the National Court, José Luis Calama, who, like all the judges of the high courts (National Court and Supreme Court), is a renowned right-winger.
The investigation centres on the state bailout of airline Plus Ultra during the COVID-19 pandemic. It began 19 months ago, when it was alleged that part of this €53 million loan was used to enrich its owners and to launder money from their illicit activities. Former Spanish Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero was implicated because he was employed as a consultant for Análisis Relevante – the company of his friend, Spanish businessman Julio Martínez, who is also implicated in financial crimes – which was then contracted by Plus Ultra.
The judge alleged that he was paid €474,000 to manage the bailout and used land purchases to launder the money. He is also being accused of selling political favours to companies and laundering money in tax havens, with Julio Martínez as an intermediary. He denies all charges.
US law enforcement has assisted in this case. A couple of years ago, it seized the mobile phone of Venezuelan businessman Rodolfo Reyes, who was one of the directors of Plus Ultra, as he was under investigation by the US Department of Homeland Security for possible money laundering. Its contents were used in this case.
It is striking that, in recent weeks, all the leaders of the Spanish right (Feijóo, Abascal, Díaz Ayuso) have paraded through the US Embassy in Madrid to pay homage to the American ambassador. With incredible arrogance, the ambassador has complained that Sánchez has not visited him!
The involvement of the Trump administration in this matter, as revenge for Sánchez’s ‘snubs’, hangs over the whole affair. Sánchez’s refusal to allow the US to use Spanish airspace and bases on Spanish soil has infuriated Trump. Now the Trump administration is trying to bring down the government.
But the most striking and irregular thing about the whole case – apart from obvious errors in the dates and facts of the accusers – is that the judge, in his summary, did not provide a single piece of direct evidence (papers, audios, messages) from Rodríguez Zapatero himself, nor of any meetings where Zapatero’s personal participation can be proven.
Everything is based on conversations and messages from third parties, circumstantial evidence, and the insinuations and conjectures of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) police officers, which the judge repeated verbatim in his ruling as if they were his own conclusions.
Instead of considering him innocent until proven guilty, Judge Calama has repeatedly asserted that Zapatero is the head of a criminal network, as if he had already been tried and convicted. In other words, this is a clear case of the reactionary Spanish judiciary weaponising the law for its own political ends – – a judiciary that is an inheritance of the Franco-era fascist state that was given a democratic lick of paint during the so-called ‘Transition’ of 1978.
Double standards
Regardless of Zapatero’s ultimate guilt or innocence, this type of judicial witch hunt would never have been waged against any of the political ‘icons’ of the right wing, who are at the heart of the state apparatus.
All of them have been involved in shady dealings to enrich themselves. This has included lobbying and influence peddling, awarding public contracts to close relatives, granting undeclared bonuses, and organising mafia-like schemes to eliminate evidence incriminating them.
For obvious reasons, some of these schemes were never reported or investigated. Others were dismissed by the courts or remained trapped in legal limbo for years. In some cases, clear incriminating evidence was discarded during the preliminary investigation. In others, the cases were delayed until the statute of limitations expired. The regime and the state apparatus protect their own.
Both González (PSOE) and Aznar (PP) joined corporate boards and engaged in lobbying to capitalise on the contacts they made during their time as prime ministers – just as Zapatero is accused of doing. While still prime minister, Aznar was caught receiving payouts for brokering commissions with Gaddafi’s Libya. He also appears in the Epstein files.
Similarly, while still prime minister, Felipe González was implicated in granting favours to businessman Enrique Sarasola and mediated between African dictators to secure mining and oil contracts for his capitalist friends.
Even the king was implicated in money laundering and got away with a small fine. The list is endless.
It must be added that investigative police units, the UCO and UDEF, are a hotbed of the right and the far right. They typically conduct their investigations in an extremely sloppy manner and have a clear bias toward seeking out corruption cases within the government.
Suffice it to say that the former Head of Anti-Money Laundering at the UDEF, Óscar Sánchez, was accused of drug trafficking in 2024, after €20 million were found hidden in his home. Another UDEF commissioner is on trial for the Kitchen Case, in which the former PP government spied on and tried to discredit Luis Bárcenas, who had damaging information about corruption in the party.
This is similar to the new judicial offensive against the PSOE [the Socialist Party] around Leire Díaz. Díaz, a former high-ranking party official, posed as a fixer offering administrative favours to businesspeople in exchange for information implicating senior UCO members. The PSOE denies being behind Leire Díaz’s actions or having financed these activities.
It is from this point that we must draw the political conclusions of this entire plot.
The plot to bring down Sánchez’s government
It doesn’t take a genius to see the political motivation behind the judicial and police apparatus’s actions against Zapatero, given his clear political ties to the Sánchez government.
Added to this is the fact that Zapatero opposed the coup attempts against the Maduro regime orchestrated by US and European imperialism, and tried to mediate between them. He thus earned the hatred of the Spanish and Venezuelan right wing, not to mention the US ruling class.
His persecution follows that of Begoña Gómez (Pedro Sánchez’s wife), Leire Díaz, and the former Attorney General (who was in the process of investigating the PP President of Madrid Ayuso’s boyfriend for embezzlement of public funds), who was convicted without evidence by the Supreme Court of leaking details about the case.
It is obvious to anyone that what is driving the ‘Zapatero case’, like the other legal cases mentioned, is the desire of the right wing to bring down the Sánchez government and bring the PP to power, through an early election.
This whole gang of judges, prosecutors, and police commanders are a privileged and untouchable group with countless perks paid for by the public purse. Each of them receive incomes of tens or hundreds of thousands of euros a year, on top of their numerous private businesses, which stem from their positions. Except for the police commanders, they are legally irremovable. They are veritable petty kings, who consider the state their own.
Since the crisis of 2008, the entire policy of this judicial and police apparatus, in close connection with the ruling class and its media, has been to fight relentlessly against any element of political destabilisation that could threaten the 1978 regime. Fabricated cases of corruption were similarly used against the leaders of the Catalan separatist movement and Podemos.
It is true that the current PSOE-SUMAR government does not represent, by any stretch of the imagination, the threat to the state apparatus and the ruling class that Catalan separatism and Podemos represented between 2012 and 2018. But on account of these previous interventions, the state apparatus has grown accustomed to and even fond of considering itself the true power in society.
It can repeal laws, dismiss regional presidents (like in Catalonia), jail Attorneys General without evidence, scrutinise the accounts of left-wing parties and unions, use the police apparatus to search any citizen, and openly display its right-wing sympathies.
As soon as Sánchez came to power in 2018, this apparatus immediately placed itself at the service of the PP (and later, the right-wing Vox party) for any campaign to destabilise and bring his government down. Among other things, it has not forgiven Sánchez and the PSOE for the amnesty law for Catalan separatists.
For example, just a few months before the July 2023 general election, president of the PP Núñez Feijóo secretly met with the right-wing prosecutors’ associations – which hold an absolute majority in the judiciary – and pledged to repeal any laws passed by Sánchez’s government that he disliked if he came to power. This is the nature of the vast majority of the Spanish judicial system: they are incorrigible reactionaries who serve their own interests and that of their patrons, who sit on the boards of banks and large corporations.
But what seems clear is that these manoeuvres now have the consensus of the entire ruling class. That includes even the big banks and industry, who had been propping up Sánchez against Vox, for fear of the explosive backlash their reactionary policies would cause amongst workers and youth.
Last autumn, the journalists of PRISA media group (which owns El País and Cadena SER radio), on behalf of this section of the ruling class, publicly urged Sánchez, via its paid journalists, to step aside and accept a new PP government as inevitable. What they want is a strong, pro-capitalist government – propped up by PSOE without Sánchez – in which Vox, Podemos or any of the other troublesome parties have no influence.
To this end, it was leaked a few days ago that executives of Cadena SER had pressured PP spokesperson Borja Sémper to have his party present a vote of no confidence against Sánchez as soon as possible.
Similarly, the sharp shift to the right by the newspaper El País in recent weeks is no coincidence. It has embraced Judge Camala’s ruling on the Zapatero case as its own.
Meanwhile, the most direct agents of the bourgeoisie within the Socialist Party (Felipe González, Page) have publicly called on Sánchez to call elections, as has the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV).
All this is part of the same campaign. By taking Zapatero’s head, the bourgeoisie is really trying to take Sánchez’s head; that is, to kill two birds with one stone.
Zapatero is not one of us
Having said all of the above, we must be clear. In recent years, Rodríguez Zapatero has garnered sympathy among a significant section of left-wing voters by presenting himself as a redeemed figure and a political and moral authority against the right. But he is not one of us, nor is he a friend of the working class that can be trusted.
Zapatero, who became Secretary General of the PSOE in 2000, came from the party’s most right-wing faction, and boasted of being an enthusiastic follower of former British Labour leader Tony Blair and his ‘Third Way’.
He unexpectedly became Prime Minister in 2004 on the back of the 11 March 2004 terrorist attacks. They were carried out by Al-Qaeda because of Spain’s involvement in the Iraq War – although the PP insisted the attack had been carried out by the armed Basque separatists, ETA.
Zapatero withdrew Spanish troops from the Iraq war and – amid the economic boom caused by housing market speculation– was able to grant social reforms like abortion, divorce and transgender rights, and legalised same-sex marriage.
However, this honeymoon with the working class ended abruptly with the crisis of 2008. From then on, his government was responsible for the greatest attack on the working class in decades. He bowed completely to the interests of big business and brought immense suffering to millions of working-class families.
For example, by raising VAT, cutting salaries and bonuses for civil servants, raising the retirement age and passing legislation that made it easier to fire people. The PSOE paid for this betrayal of the working class with the crushing election loss to the PP in 2011. Even under Sánchez, it has never recovered the electoral support the party enjoyed before 2008.
But more fundamentally, a vast divide separates us. Zapatero is a capitalist politician. Not content with the perks of being a former PM – his yearly €80,000 lifetime pension, his official car, and free travel – he embarked on all sorts of business ventures after leaving office. He leveraged his former position to earn hundreds of thousands of euros annually, just like the rest of them. He owes his income, privileges, and standard of living to the capitalist system and to the large capitalist businesses he serves.
In decisive moments of social crisis, such superficially ‘progressive’ politicians, who enjoy a certain authority among a broad section of the working masses, are deployed by the ruling class to help extinguish the fire. When they are no longer useful, or when it suits the bourgeoisie – as is the case now with the attempt to remove Pedro Sánchez – they are discarded and destroyed in the interests of the system itself.
This is the most important lesson we must learn. The working class cannot place its trust in people who are alien to it, to its interests and living conditions. It must trust in itself, in its strength and struggle, and build a communist organisation that aims to overthrow the entire system of exploitation, corruption, and violence.
What perspectives are opening up?
Right now, millions of left-wing voters across the country – whether or not they support Sánchez and the PSOE – are understandably concerned that this judicial onslaught by the police and judiciary could lead to the downfall of the government and the rise of the right to power.
The idea that a ‘judicial coup’ is being hatched is spreading among the most advanced layer of workers, youth, and left-wing voters. Regardless of whether it succeeds or not, the authority of the state apparatus (the judiciary and police) has suffered an irreparable blow in the eyes of these millions.
This is a very positive step in their process of gaining consciousness: they are learning that these are the repressive arms of the ruling class and an enemy. This will ensure that the next wave of the class struggle – which could include a social explosion – will be more resolute and radical against this arbitrary apparatus and demand their dismantling.
Unfortunately, far from denouncing the corruption of the judiciary, the cowardly leadership of the reformist left – the PSOE, IU, and SUMAR – call for ‘trusting in justice’ and ‘letting it do its work,’ as if this very ‘justice’ system had not convicted an Attorney General without evidence, and were it not now clearly trying to bring the government down. Who is surprised? They are the left wing of the 1978 regime, inherited from Franco, and cannot contemplate any alternative outside of it.
The alternative would be to call for active mobilisation against this onslaught by the right. But it does not seem we can expect any such initiative from the left wing of the regime. Even so, it cannot be ruled out that such a mobilisation might arise spontaneously if the arrogance of the ‘judicial party’ crosses a certain line. There is already widespread scepticism regarding the charges levelled against Zapatero.
Movements at the top of the state and politics do not directly reflect the situation at the base of society. Dissatisfaction with living conditions is evident. Although there is much frustration with the current ‘progressive’ government, hopes for a right-wing government are no higher. They also have no solution to the housing crisis, – they are the staunchest defenders of landlords – the high cost of living, or the deterioration of public services. We are also seeing a proliferation of disputes over wages, which will only intensify.
The right wing and the bourgeoisie may pay dearly for their rush to reach Moncloa [the Prime Minister’s residence]. In the past, in 1996 and 2011, the right wing’s electoral victory was viewed with some anticipation by a segment of the population and with resignation by the left’s base. It was the era of the ‘centrist’ or ‘centre-right’ PP.
Today, the situation is radically different. There is a polarisation that did not exist in those years. More than ever, there is a burning hatred against the right among the rank-and-file of the left, and even among a sector of workers and young people who do not feel motivated to go out and vote.
The arrogance and reactionary rhetoric of the leaders of the PP and Vox is generating undisguised resentment among millions of workers and young people. In this climate, a right-wing government backed by parliamentary support from the PSOE and PNV – as the ruling class intends, following a potential snap election – would destroy the latter two parties politically.
The alternative scenario, a PP-Vox government based on a significant decline in voter turnout, would very quickly face the wrath of millions of young people and workers.
Either way, it would have to confront the looming economic crisis – a crisis that the war in Iran will accelerate. In addition to dismantling social and democratic gains, it will have to implement severe cuts in social spending while facing a significant rise in unemployment.
All the conditions are being prepared for social conflict on a scale we have not seen in years, and a powerful shift to the left in politics and society. This is what we must prepare for. Therefore, the building of a revolutionary communist alternative takes on a sense of urgency – not when that moment arrives, but right now.
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