José Antonio Zarzalejos: "Juan Carlos I has had a miserable behavior"

We talked at vermouth time in a room in the desert hotel Palace in Madrid, under the silent gaze of Alfonso XIII from a sepia photo on the canvas.

Faced with so much stillness, out there, in the Congress of Deputies, the patio is turned upside down after the Murcia earthquake and its even more deadly Madrid aftershock.

A day before, Pablo Iglesias has announced that he is leaving the vice presidency of the Government to save Madrid from the possible triumph of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and his probable pact with the extreme right after the early elections.

Zarzalejos, former editor of newspapers and respected analyst by all the acronyms of the parliamentary arch, comes to talk about his book, but we both know that this is just an excuse to be able to talk about everything and in order.

I start soft, in case the old master does not want or cannot enter the rag from the front.

Illusion.

Since you have not directed, and have dedicated yourself to political analysis, you are a sacred cow of the trade.

Absolutely.

Look, two things have happened to me.

I was the director of

El Correo

in the nineties, terrifying years in the Basque Country.

I experienced the murder of Gregorio Ordóñez, Miguel Ángel Blanco, the kidnapping of Ortega Lara, the harassment of my newspaper and other media, my own accusation by the

Vizcaya command.

Then I was the director of

ABC

at the turn of the century.

I lived 9/11 and M 11.

And there, I had a professional, personal and intellectual dilemma and I chose a path, which was not made of roses.

I did not pay the thesis that it had been ETA.

That left me wounds, of which I have scars, and it has also generated the feeling that I am a unique person in the profession.

I do not pretend to be objective, that is a rather useless desideratum, but to be true to myself in order to be honest with the readers.

The prestige of journalists is low.

Are you worried?

We have become corrupted and there is enormous confusion between what is information, entertainment and sectarian journalism.

Right and left populism has identified the media as an obstacle to establishing an acclaiming democracy between the citizen and the leader, and they want to expel us from the system.

We have entered that critical phase that either we assert ourselves as intermediaries, adding value, context and hierarchy to the information and analysis that we publish, or the temptation of the citizen, empowered by technology, is to make their own information menu and do without We.

Let's talk about his book.

Is Juan Carlos I a burden for Felipe VI?

Yes, but not because I say so, but because he has earned it.

If he hadn't done what he did, if his behavior hadn't been so miserable, it wouldn't be.

He is the great adversary of his son.

Did you say "miserable"?

Yes. Juan Carlos's behavior has been miserable, not his person.

But you - the media - protected it for decades.

I do not agree.

That is a socialization of guilt, and the guilt is yours alone.

Another thing is the efficiency of the system.

A permissive consensus may have been produced, but it was a consensus of thanks that he manipulated.

He betrayed us.

The system gave him immunity, and he wanted to turn it into impunity.

The responsibility is yours.

Let's not turn a King's crisis of righteousness into a systemic crisis.

I notice him very pissed off.

I am, because I believe that there is a tendency of a

Pleistocene

monarchism

that tries to dilute the responsibilities of Juan Carlos in the inefficiency of the system.

And no.

The one who went to Botswana was him.

The one who did legal engineering to hide certain amounts from the treasury was he.

The one who accepted opaque transfers was him.

It is not the system, it is not you and me, it is not the director of EL PAÍS,

ABC

or

El Mundo

.

Is he.

I'm very disappointed.

Not only personally, but generationally: it is a huge disappointment for those of us who lived with enthusiasm, in very difficult places, like myself in the Basque Country, the transition from dictatorship to democracy.

How much harm do unsolicited 'viva' do to Felipe VI?

Just like a bear hugging you.

The bear hug is always murderous.

The Monarchy does not need enthusiasm, but institutional normality and that it be perceived across the board as an institution of absolutely everyone.

Does it make sense for the throne to be inherited in the 21st century?

We have to ask the Spanish, but also the Swedes, the British, the Japanese, the Danes ... Parliamentary monarchies are the form of state in the countries with the highest democratic quality in the West.

Now, that is why its owner has to earn the legitimacy of his function every day.

When they leave the lane of normality and fall into weaknesses, they show great fragility.

But kings are human.

They are, but they are born in a condition.

If they are not willing to face these difficulties, they should be discharged, which is what I think the two infantas of Spain who have skipped the vaccination shift should do: to disenroll from the Crown and disappear from the succession order.

Do you think Juan Carlos has lost contact with reality?

Contact with reality has been lost for a long time.

He, and some people around him, have created virtual reality for him.

That is what allowed him to believe that he could start a new life with Corinna Larsen, who can receive a 100 million donation with impunity and hide it from the treasury ... He has a bad relationship with reality.

And that is due to the disease of power, sufficiently described, and to what I firmly believe is a problem of cognitive impairment.

Would the Crown endure today a divorce from the current Kings?

Should.

Queen Letizia is the first who does not come from the high aristocracy or the royal houses.

There may be a marital failure.

What's more, I think I can affirm that a divorce is foreseen in your marriage agreements.

So yes.

How can we think, in the 21st century, that Doña Letizia could have the same behavior as Doña Sofía?

It does not make any sense

Is Queen Sofia a saint?

Neither a saint nor a professional.

He is a person who gave up at the time, and when you give up once, there is no longer a battle you win.

Give advice to Felipe VI.

That, in due course, counts.

When the conditions exist to make a convincing and sincere story that also allows him to open up and show himself to Spanish society as it is.

Felipe VI is a man above all worthy.

Elizabeth of England overcame her

annus horribilis.

Will Felipe VI succeed in his?

If the matter of Don Juan Carlos is closed by the prosecution without a criminal complaint, he settles outside of Spain in a reasonable place, because Abu Dhabi is not, and he is silent, let's say that is not going to be resolved, it will remain in history, but it won't do any more damage.

If to that we add that the sisters of the King, the two, for different reasons, resign, all the better.

And if the King maintains the course of the constitutional King, coordinating well his margin of autonomy with his relationship with the Government and the institutions of the State and leads an exemplary life like the one he is doing, I believe that Leonor will have possibilities.

Will the princess of Asturias reign?

I think so, regardless of what each one may wish for.

I do not see the conditions for a constituent process, to overturn the Constitution of 78, make a new one and return to a republic with the two experiences that we have in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Let's go down to the street.

What did you think of the Madrid deputy

Mónica García denouncing the tutelage of men

over women in politics?

I think it is true.

Alpha males have to be very careful, not of their fellows, but of the ladies who at some point stop their feet.

Testosterone in politics is over.

It is irreversible.

For the successive 8-M?

Man, for that and for the education that the middle classes have given to their own daughters.

We have made free women at home, which is where we have to start doing them.

Free women are everywhere except in the Church, where they are still subordinate.

Communism or freedom?

Well, I think that people do not have to submit to these kinds of dilemmas.

Communism, at this moment, is a historical reference that is used in an inappropriate way in a society like this.

It is freedom or liberty.

There is no other dilemma.

I see him in top form.

I am between 60 and 70, the age that geriatricians say is the most productive intellectually, you can be in good physical shape and have an absolutely full playful, sexual and social activity.

Come on, it's

on fire.

No, but I'm not willing to hand over the spoon.

Real 'Thriller'

This is how José Antonio Zarzalejos (Bilbao, 67 years old) defines his book 'A King in Adversity' (Planet), where he analyzes the six-year reign of Felipe VI.

"It is focused as a story with rigor in the facts and in the legal and political analysis, but it can be read as a novel of intrigue," he maintains.

The former director of 'El Correo' and 'ABC', and a renowned political analyst at 'El Confidencial', where he publishes articles of 800 words - "more, forget it, it is not read today," he jokes - maintains that King Juan Carlos is today , above many furious anti-monarchists, his son's greatest adversary.