The Justice’s attack on the head of Government’s wife is just another of the crises that have involved the executive since the July elections. Next week, Sánchez will say whether he stays or resigns. If he stays, he will have to pass a confidence vote.
Since this Friday, Catalonia has officially been campaigning for the autonomous elections on May 12th. And it is also officially in a deep political crisis – which has been manifesting itself since the socialist Pedro Sánchez managed to contradict the vote of the majority of Spaniards (which made the PP win the elections last July), remaining at the head of the Government.
Since then, Sánchez’s political life has been marked by a succession of episodes that have deprived him of any possibility of governing with a minimum of stability. From the reticence that King Philip VI did not hide when facing a new Sánchez Government, to the current suspicions that fall on his wife.
And if on the Catalan front things seem to be going well for the socialists – according to polls, the socialists could return to government after 14 years of independentist majorities – on the national front it is a disaster.
But, obviously, the national crisis will affect Catalonia. Salvador Illa, the leader of the socialists in Catalonia, is counting on a relative majority and the contribution of the independentists to form a stable Government. But that may well not happen. In 2021, the PSC received the most votes, but a coalition of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Together for Catalonia (JxCat, by Carles Puigdemont), prevented the socialists from reaching the Government.
These are the same parties that support the PSOE’s central government – which allows us to conclude about the quality of this support, say critics. In fact, in a recent interview, Puigdemont threatened to withdraw support for Sánchez’s government if the socialists accept the votes of the Popular Party (PP, right) to make a regional executive led by independentists unfeasible, as happened last year in Barcelona’s city council.
As it turned out, all of this was almost nothing compared to what was to come. Last Wednesday, Pedro Sánchez said he was considering resigning. He canceled his agenda for the next few days to “stop and reflect” and promised a public statement about his future for next Monday. Apparently, Sánchez could do nothing more, given the fact that a Madrid court confirmed the opening of “a preliminary investigation” into his wife, Begoña Gómez, for alleged influence peddling and corruption. According to the Spanish press, the case arose following a complaint filed by an association linked to the Spanish far right. Sánchez said, according to the press, that he has been a victim, for months, of the “slime machine” of the PP and Vox extremists and that the problems that affected his wife are an “unprecedented attack”.
PP and Vox accused Sánchez of victimizing himself to divert attention from various suspicions and judicial cases of corruption and of everything being nothing more than “a spectacle” of the electoral campaign, to mobilize PSOE activists and structures.
Until Monday, the country remains suspended. But the most likely, according to the press, is that Sánchez will end up submitting to a motion of confidence in parliament, which will force the Spanish ‘contraption’ to unite in support of the Government.
