José Bono

Former Spanish Minister of Defence

See: José Bono resigns from Spanish Government

José Bono was born in 1950 in Albacete and holds degrees in Law and Economics. He was a lawyer and lecturer in the Complutense University of Madrid until the 1979 elections, when he won a seat for the Socialist Party and became a member of Congress.

Since then he has dedicated his career to politics and has been one of the most prominent members of the PSOE party for the past 20 years.

In 1983 he moved from Spain's national Congress to the regional Castilla La Mancha where he was voted in as President of the Regional Government, also in 1983. He remained President of Castilla La Mancha for 21 years and is the only Spanish Regional President to have won an absolute majority in 6 consecutive regional elections.

In 2000, following the Socialist electoral defeat and the resignation of Joaquin Almunia, José Bono was the favourite to become the new leader of the PSOE party, but in the final vote José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won a surprise victory and beat Bono to become the new General Secretary of the Socialist Party.

On 14th March 2004, the PSOE won the Spanish elections and José Bono was one of the first names to be mentioned for one of the top ministerial posts. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had always said that if he won the elections, he would like Bono to be in his Government. It was soon confirmed that José Bono would be the new Minister of Defence in the Socialist government, and even before Zapatero was elected President by the new parliament, Bono started an intensive round of conversations with the international community to evaluate the situation of the Spanish troops in Iraq and to assess the probablility that the US would allow the United Nations to take control of the post-war situation or not.

José Bono is married and has four children.

• By email: infodefensa@mde.es
• By post: Paseo de la Castellana, 109 28071-Madrid ESPAÑA
• By phone: 34 91 395 50 00

José Bono's Personal Page - Bono is one of the few Spanish politicians to have made use of the Internet in his election campaign. His personal page has lots of information, speeches and photos.