José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero an MP he was finally exempted. 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
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero the American policy in regard to Iraq pursued by Prime Minister Aznar. During the electoral campaign Zapatero promised to withdraw the troops if control in Iraq was not passed to the United Nations after 30 June (the ending date of the initial Spanish military agreement with the multinational coalition that had overthrown Saddam Hussein). Zapatero declared that he did not intend to withdraw the Spanish troops before that date after being questioned about the issue by the People's Party's leader Mariano Rajoy in his inauguration parliamentary debate as Prime Minister. On 19 April 2004 Zapatero announced the withdrawal of the