Política

Alberto Núñez Feijóo insisted this Thursday on calling for elections due to the corruption cases surrounding the Government and Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE, but he also warned that he will do “everything possible” to change the Government: “When I say everything, I mean everything.” Feijóo, in any case, avoided explicitly mentioning the motion of no confidence as a tool to change the Government, although he again appealed for the partners to take action.

Once the summary of the Plus Ultra case is known, the investigated parties already know what evidence and indications exist against them. Messages, invoices, documents, conversations, or tax information that are part of the case and have led Judge José Luis Calama to affirm, based on indications, the existence of a network of influence peddling led by former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Now the moves begin. The investigated parties have three options: deny all the indications, band together among themselves, or adopt a ‘every man for himself’ approach.

The first session of the trial against David Sánchez, brother of the Prime Minister, took place this morning at a slow pace. Sánchez arrived at the Audiencia de Badajoz, where he is being tried for alleged crimes of influence peddling and malfeasance, at 9:40 in the morning. He got out of the car, put on his blazer, and entered the Palace of Justice calmly.

Blow after blow, almost without respite, the Government and the PSOE watch with bewilderment and astonishment, with alarm and concern, the flood of judicial cases pressuring Pedro Sánchez. This Thursday, with the president’s brother, David Sánchez, sitting in the dock at the Badajoz Court, after agents from the Civil Guard’s central operative unit (UCO) again raided the Ferraz headquarters on Wednesday to gather data on the plot allegedly orchestrated by the former organization secretary, Santos Cerdán, following the indictment of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the pending sentence for former minister José Luis Ábalos, or the ongoing process against the wife of the head of government, Begoña Gómez.

It is now the turn of former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz to give his explanations about his role in the so-called ‘Operation Kitchen’, a parapolice operation to steal documents about the PP’s slush fund from the party’s former treasurer Luis Bárcenas, who threatened to hand them over to the judge in the Gürtel case.

The court judging the Kitchen case, the alleged parapolice operation to spy on the former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas between 2013 and 2015, finished yesterday hearing the recordings submitted as evidence in the case and today will begin to listen to the ten accused, including former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez. The Prosecutor’s Office is requesting 15 years in prison for both.

The group that was formed in April 2024 to disrupt judicial processes – and those who led them – with little success consisted of nine people, although not all with the same role. There may be more, but now, Judge Santiago Pedraz limits it to them, assigning them the roles of leader, his second-in-command, financiers, and executors. All of them have been caught, as always happens, by new facts that have appeared in another case. Now they will have to provide explanations. Who are they, what connects them, what drives them?

The court judging the Kitchen case, the alleged parapolice operation to spy on the former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas between 2013 and 2015, finished yesterday hearing the recordings submitted as evidence in the case and today will begin to listen to the ten accused, including former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez. The Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 15 years in prison for both.

At least for a few days, from today until June 4, the epicenter of judicial life will move from Madrid to Badajoz. In the Extremadura city, the trial for the alleged irregularities in the 2017 hiring of David Sánchez, brother of the current Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, by the Diputación de Badajoz, begins this Thursday. The oral hearing at the provincial court will put Sánchez and ten other defendants on the bench, for the alleged crimes of malfeasance and influence peddling.

The show is judged by the last act, always meant to dazzle, capture attention, and monopolize the commentary. That is the reality. When the show of judge José Luís Calama has not yet ended on track number one, the UDEF and José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero,…