Due to the case involving former Prime Minister and former leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Popular Party (PP), the main opposition force in Spain, reiterated last week that Sánchez should resign or be overthrown through a motion of no confidence.
For this reason, the conservative political group is appealing, so far without success, to the coalition parties that enabled the Government to withdraw their support from the executive.
The coalition partners refuse to support a motion of no confidence from the PP because it would also require the votes of the far-right party Vox, an organization with which they do not want to be aligned or allied.
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However, at least one of the coalition forces, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), has requested elections later this year, while simultaneously reiterating its refusal to support a motion of no confidence put forward by the PP and Vox.
The argument of the PNV is that it would be irresponsible for the Government to continue beyond 2026 without a clear direction and without a stable majority, while dealing with an uncontrolled and highly judicialized political agenda.
Sánchez has repeatedly stated that the current legislature will continue until the very end of its mandate.
In Spain, where the head of state, the King, does not have the constitutional power to dissolve parliament, it is up to the Government itself to call an election, and the executive can only fall if it resigns or through the approval of a motion of no confidence.
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David Sánchez, brother of Pedro Sánchez, begins his trial in Badajoz on Thursday for influence peddling and administrative prevarication, alongside ten other individuals, including the former leader of the PSOE in the region of Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo.
At issue is the suspicion that in 2017 a job position was purposefully created for David Sánchez in the administration of the province of Badajoz, which was led by the Socialists, at a time when Pedro Sánchez was not yet prime minister but was already heading the PSOE.
Begoña Gómez, married to Pedro Sánchez, was prosecuted for four crimes in April by an investigating judge in Madrid, following a two-year judicial probe that the Public Prosecutor’s Office, based on police investigation reports, considered lacked merit to reach trial.
The wife of Sánchez is accused of influence peddling, corruption in business, misappropriation of public funds, and embezzlement, with no decision having been made yet on whether or not the case will proceed to an actual trial.
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At issue is the work of Begoña Gómez with a university, which the investigating judge considered to have been favored by certain public decisions, while the magistrate also mentioned that the wife of Sánchez mobilized private funds not for the public university chair, which he considered a facade, but to integrate them into her personal assets.
The accusation of misappropriation of public funds is related to an advisor to the Presidency of the Government who received a salary paid with public funds but, according to the judge, provided services to Begoña Gómez linked to the professional activity of the prime minister’s wife.
The crime of embezzlement has to do with the registration and use, by Begoña Gómez, of a software program developed within the university chair.
A police report released this week concluded that there are no suspicious money movements in the accounts of Begoña Gómez and that the university chair she directed was legally created, although admitting indications that it was tailor-made for the wife of the prime minister.
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The former Minister of Transport and former leader of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, who was a right-hand man of Pedro Sánchez in the Government and within the party, was tried this month for corruption in the purchase of masks and other sanitary material during the covid-19 pandemic, while he was still in the executive, and is currently awaiting his sentence in pre-trial detention.
Begoña Gómez, married to Pedro Sánchez, was prosecuted for four crimes in April by an investigating judge in Madrid. Photo: via LUSA
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is requesting 24 years in prison for Ábalos and 19 and a half years in prison for his former advisor Koldo García, as the two men and a businessman, Víctor de Aldama, were accused of bribery, influence peddling, embezzlement of public money, integration into a criminal organization, use of privileged information, forgery, and prevarication.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office argued that the three individuals, taking advantage of the position that José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García held at the time in the Government and the PSOE, led public bodies and public companies to buy sanitary material during covid-19 and obtained illegal commissions.
The mask case gave rise to another broader process, still ongoing, in which suspicions of corruption within the leadership of the PSOE are being investigated, related to eventual commissions in the awarding of public works contracts.
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In addition to Ábalos and Koldo García, this investigation involves a former number three of the PSOE and former lawmaker Santos Cerdán, who has also already been placed in pre-trial detention.
Faced with suspicions of corruption, Ábalos, who served as minister between 2018 and 2021, was expelled from the PSOE in 2024.
He was one of the PSOE leaders closest to Sánchez, forming part, along with Santos Cerdán, of the hard core that accompanied him on the path to the leadership of the PSOE in 2017 and the Government in 2018.
The former Spanish prime minister is indicted for influence peddling and money laundering in a judicial process opened to investigate the rescue of the airline Plus Ultra in 2021, according to the Spanish justice system.
Plus Ultra, a small-scale airline, benefited in 2021 from a financial rescue of 53 million euros, granted in the form of a loan by the Spanish government of Sánchez, which at the time created a ten-billion-euro fund to rescue companies considered strategic that were facing difficulties because of covid-19.
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The Spanish Government has expressed tranquility and respect for justice, but without forgetting the fundamental principle of the presumption of innocence in the investigation into Zapatero, and also regarding the rescue of Plus Ultra.
The executive highlighted that the various loans granted to airlines during the pandemic were authorized by the European Commission and validated by the Spanish Court of Auditors and the Court of Justice of the European Union, in completely transparent processes similar to those adopted by other European countries.
The posture of Pedro Sánchez regarding the cases of his wife and his brother is different from the position he assumed face to the investigations into Ábalos and Santos Cerdán.
In these latter cases, Sánchez admitted that there are very strong indications against the targeted individuals and went so far as to apologize to the members of the PSOE.
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Regarding his wife and his brother, he has stressed that these are false allegations from far-right organizations, stated that there are judges who play politics, guaranteed the innocence and honesty of both, and said he expects justice and time to put things in their proper place.
As for Zapatero, one of the greatest supporters of Sánchez in the 2023 legislative elections and considered until now by analysts and the press as a moral reference and one of the great electoral assets of the Spanish left, the head of the Government stated: “Total collaboration with justice, total respect for the presumption of innocence, and all my support for President Zapatero.”
