The Government tried to boast last Tuesday about the new records registered in the labor market, with more than 22.3 million employed, as “proof of the strength” of the Spanish economy, in addition to the measures approved in the Council of Ministers to encourage those over 65 to go to the cinema for 2 euros or to extend the cultural voucher of 400 euros per year for the younger generation…
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But all that went unnoticed and was completely overshadowed because a few hours earlier the judge of the National Court José Luis Calama had charged none other than José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with alleged corruption offenses. The former Prime Minister thus became the first in Spanish democracy to be investigated for corruption.
The consequent political and media earthquake once again buried all the political initiative of the Executive. Again. And, as is now customary, at the doorstep of a summer in which his adversaries hope that Pedro Sánchez will not survive in office.
“The strategy of the Popular Party is always to reach summer with unbearable noise,” they claim at Moncloa, regarding the political use they attribute to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party of the judicial processes against the direct, family, and political environment of the Prime Minister.
Last year, the cause of the political earthquake was the provisional imprisonment, on July 1, 2025, of the then secretary of organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, also for alleged corruption. A few days later, on July 5, Francisco Salazar, who was to replace him as deputy in the position, resigned in his case due to accusations of alleged sexual harassment. And the year before, the tsunami was caused by the investigation opened in April 2024 against the president’s own wife, Begoña Gómez. In both the first and the last case, Sánchez himself admitted that he considered throwing in the towel. Resigning.
Joining the charge against the former president are the cases of the president’s brother and wife, Ábalos and Cerdán
“It’s May, it was about time,” they acknowledge at Moncloa after the charge against Zapatero. “We always suffer unbearable pressure when summer arrives, with the political use of judicial rulings,” they admit.
Pedro Sánchez, who learned the bombshell news on Tuesday while attending an event with the King at the Zarzuela Palace, immediately called the former Prime Minister, one of his closest allies and the last great historical reference of the current PSOE, after the defections of Felipe González, Alfonso Guerra, and other veterans of the old guard.
Once he received Zapatero’s explanations, Sánchez sent a message to the members of the socialist executive urging them to “defend the good name” of the former president. He conveyed the same to the ministers with whom he then shared the usual coffee before the Council of Ministers meeting. But all alarms were already blaring.
At Moncloa, they deployed all their hoses to try to contain the spread of the fire unleashed. But the entire political scenario was already occupied by the Zapatero case. Sánchez attended the government control session in the Congress of Deputies on Wednesday, prepared for the inevitable storm. “All my support to President Zapatero,” he announced.
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Feijóo again demanded his resignation: “What is he still doing there, staining the presidency of the Government of Spain one more day?” “He presides over a corrupt mafia,” Vox leader Santiago Abascal accused him. But also the ERC spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, warned him: “If this is true, it’s crap.”
The Executive focuses all attention on the visit to the Pope and his tour of Spain… and longs for the summer break
Sánchez fled the chamber in a hurry to continue with his scheduled public agenda at Moncloa and later close an aerospace congress in which he announced several initiatives in the field. Just like the next day, Thursday, when he presented at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base the campaign to fight forest fires for this summer, in which he promised “the greatest deployment of the State” to combat them.
All overshadowed again because the alleged Zapatero scandal monopolizes the entire scenario. And next week the “noise” will intensify, according to Moncloa, when the full content of the investigation file against the former president is revealed, who will appear before the National Court on June 2.
Also, “next week they try the president’s brother,” they resign at Moncloa, referring to the judicial process against David Sánchez at the Badajoz Court, for possible crimes of malfeasance and influence peddling. At the same time, they remain pending any developments that may arise regarding the cases of Begoña Gómez and Santos Cerdán, as well as the Supreme Court ruling on former minister José Luis Ábalos. “This is going to take a long time, we will continue to live it for many weeks… and we have to take it calmly and serenely,” the Sánchez team prescribes.
The question is whether Sánchez will once again manage to survive politically everything that is coming at him again. Once again, the summer break and parliamentary holidays are eagerly awaited at Moncloa, trusting that the enormous pressure will ease to regain political momentum and initiative.
Just before Zapatero’s charge, the PSOE leadership breathed a sigh of relief despite the heavy defeat they suffered last Sunday in the Andalusian elections, as the culmination of a disastrous regional election cycle that began in Extremadura and continued in Aragón and Castilla y León. But their consolation is that things could have gone much worse. “Ten months ago, no one gave us a dime,” they claimed.
“The PP’s strategy is always to reach summer with unbearable noise,” claims Sánchez’s team
Until the summer break arrives, Sánchez tries to keep his course and the ship afloat, as he intends to reach port, with sails still full, in the general elections of July 2027. For now, at Moncloa, they focus all their efforts on the visit that the Prime Minister will make next Wednesday to the Pope at the Vatican, as a prelude to the tour that Leo XIV will lead in Spain between June 6 and 12. A miracle would be welcome.
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