Perhaps waiting for the best moment to call elections, Pedro Sánchez missed the opportunity. That remains to be seen. The only certainty is that the PSOE leader has not seen a favorable moment since last year, when the Government arrived besieged and exhausted in the summer. The avalanche of judicial actions around the PSOE is relentless and will not abate. The fronts looming over the president are so many that it is impossible to discern the scope of each one, but all contribute to creating an unbearable atmosphere. To defend itself, and out of its own conviction, the Government conveys the idea of a convergence of interests from the political, media, judicial, and police right to unseat Sánchez. According to this thesis, it would not only be about forcing him to call elections, but also about fostering a PSOE result disastrous enough to prevent Sánchez from continuing as leader of that party in opposition, awaiting a new opportunity.
Read more Half the world takes note of the anti-Trump PSOE shock and openness to China
To understand what is happening, a brief overview of the open cases and their possible evolution is necessary:
The president’s family
The cases of David Sánchez and Begoña Gómez are the ones that have most fueled the argument of political persecution by the Government. The brother’s case is being tried these days in Badajoz, accused of having accepted an alleged favor. The sentence is expected in a few weeks. The case of Sánchez’s wife caused those five days when the president was about to resign, two years ago. Judge Peinado’s actions have been highly disputed. The Minister of Justice reported him to the Judicial Power Council a year ago and has received no response.
Ábalos and Koldo
The former minister and his right-hand man, in provisional prison, await sentencing for rigging mask contracts. By now, many details of irregular actions by both are known for the Government to dare to defend their innocence. This case detonated in the PSOE like a bomb due to Ábalos’s enormous power in the party and his political influence over Sánchez. Koldo’s recordings have allowed pulling the thread of other alleged corruptions.
Cerdán and Leire
If Ábalos’s case was a bomb, the case against Santos Cerdán was a bigger blow to the president. Suspicious rumors circulated about the former, but it is hard to find anyone who harbored the slightest suspicion about the latter’s behavior. He has turned out to be the most toxic piece. Not only for the alleged receipt of commissions for awarding works, but for what he could have done as PSOE’s secretary of organization, such as hiring the “plumber” Leire Díez. This case gained strength this week when Judge Pedraz sent the UCO to the PSOE headquarters with a request for information. It is being investigated whether Cerdán ordered payments to Leire Díez to seek dirt on judges, prosecutors, and civil guards who were on the trail of socialist corruptions. The “plumber’s” methods were those of Mortadelo and Filemón, and not very fruitful. But the payment could have been made with false invoices, for which the PSOE manager is charged. The judge is looking for the money trail, including its origin, in case there was any kind of irregular party financing.
Illegal financing
Another judge, Ismael Moreno, opened a case to investigate whether there was illegal financing of the PSOE. He did so at the request of the Supreme Court, as a derivative of the Koldo case, when the businessman commission agent friend of his, Víctor de Aldama, claimed he also gave money to the party. Aldama is free after agreeing with the prosecutor on his cooperation with justice. Judge Moreno requested all expense tickets and invoices from the party between 2017 and 2024. Boxes and boxes that the PSOE provided. It is a secret case that could explode at some point, for example in the form of a raid on the Ferraz headquarters if the accounting shows any inconsistency. Both this case and the previous one could lead to a PSOE indictment and that would put Sánchez on the ropes.
Read more How did we get to Zapatero?
Zapatero
His indictment is a moral blow to the socialists. Beyond whether his private businesses are honest, ethical, or aesthetic, the legality or not of the Government’s loan to the airline Plus Ultra during the pandemic is at stake.
The Government assumes the alleged corruption of Ábalos, Koldo, and Cerdán (with the derivative Leire), but they believe that in other cases there is an excess of “spectacle” that exceeds the seriousness of what is being investigated and attribute it to the animosity of some judges and police chiefs unleashed after Sánchez’s pacts with Junts. Not only because of the amnesty, but for having indirectly assumed Carles Puigdemont’s “lawfare” discourse in the investiture pact.
The truth is that on the one hand it is difficult to assume a malevolent concert of so many judges, prosecutors, and agents against the Government, but on the other hand it would be less credible if high police instances had not participated in operations fabricated with falsehoods in the past to discredit independentist politicians (something that has never been truly investigated by any judge) or Podemos, for example. There is no single and simple explanation for everything, although everything contributes to undermining citizens’ trust in their authorities.
The progress of the investigations will bring more scares to the PSOE and Sánchez only has two cards to mobilize his voters: the PP-Vox alternative and the message of judicial and police persecution. But his greatest risk is the lack of political support, which presents him as a leader clinging to the chair when his allies consider the legislature over.
Read more ZP, between the ‘sagacity’ of the UDEF and the love of money
