In the lead up to the 2008 elections Bishops started campaigning weeks before the official start of government campaigning, strongly opposing Prime Minister Jose Zapatero and the socialist Government's policies. According to sociologist Enrique Gil Calvo "Spain has now become a country of evangelisation. The reconquest of the public arena by the Vatican is beginning in Spain.... It is a kind of crusade, a struggle against Prime Minister Zapatero who is regarded by the Pope as a force of evil, working towards the breakdown of democracy." In opposition to this Zapatero is strongly criticising the Catholic Church's involvement in politics and threatens them with a review of national church funding and has directly hit them with the legalisation of civil partnerships between homosexual couples.