MADRID – Eight years after ousting a corruption-mired, centre-right government on the promise of cleaning up politics, Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is running out of road as graft accusations stack up against his party and family.
Lauded abroad by liberals for standing up to US President Donald Trump, opens new tab and calling out atrocities in Gaza, at home Sanchez trails in the polls and is coming under fire even from allies for the string of corruption cases making their way through Spain’s courts. Sanchez himself has not been named in any of the cases to date and has said they are a part of a campaign to oust him. There is a long tradition in Spain of the two political parties that have alternated in power taking advantage of the levers of patronage that they control when in office, said Miriam Gonzalez, a Spanish lawyer and founder of España Mejor, a platform for engaging civil society in politics.
Alberto Feijoo, leader of the conservative People’s Party that was kicked out in the 2018 no confidence vote, quipped that there were so many cases hovering over Sanchez that when police on Wednesday searched his Socialist Party’s (PSOE) headquarters, Spaniards had no idea to which case it was related. Sanchez himself has not been named in any of the cases to date and has said they are a part of a campaign to oust him. There is a long tradition in Spain of the two political parties that have alternated in power taking advantage of the levers of patronage that they control when in office, said Miriam Gonzalez, a Spanish lawyer and founder of España Mejor, a platform for engaging civil society in politics. Alberto Feijoo, leader of the conservative People’s Party that was kicked out in the 2018 no confidence vote, quipped that there were so many cases hovering over Sanchez that when police on Wednesday searched his Socialist Party’s (PSOE) headquarters, Spaniards had no idea to which case it was related. Key confidants, including Sanchez’s number three in the PSOE and his former transport minister, are being investigated in several cases involving kickbacks for public works, or oil and gas contracts, and the procurement of masks during the pandemic. Last week, Spain’s High Court said it was investigating former Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for allegedly leading a network that profited from lobbying public authorities on behalf of third parties, such as airline Plus Ultra. He denies the claims. That case is particularly damaging for Sanchez because of Zapatero’s role as a mentor, said Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quiros, an economist and president of Freemarket Corporate Intelligence. “Zapatero is Sanchez’s ideological father,” he said. “They are two sides of the same coin.”
