Pedro Sánchez is trying to save the Spanish Socialist Party, overwhelmed by a corruption scandal that touched the leaders of political formation. To contain the damage, the premier has appointed four people to the interim leadership of the PSOE, in an attempt to preserve the hold of a minority government supported by far -left groups and by Basque and Catalan nationalist parties.
The number 3 of the party under investigation
The new team replaces Santos Cerdán, a former number three of the party and organizational secretary, who resigned after being summoned by a judge of the Supreme Court to testify in an investigation into alleged bribes in exchange for public contracts. According to a police report, Cerdán discussed the acceptance of illegal payments. “I will testify to demonstrate my innocence,” he said. Its replacement will be formalized at the Congress of the Party scheduled for Friday 5 July.
At the press conference in Madrid, Sánchez promised penalty: “We are not perfect, but we are uncompromising when it comes to corruption”. The premier has so far rejected the requests of early elections, instead promising an internal reform and an external audit of the party accounts. “We will not cover cases of corruption that occur within our ranks, however painful they can be,” he assured.
The accusations
In addition to Cerdán, the investigation also involves former transport minister José Luis ábalos and his former councilor Koldo García. The Civil Guard accuses them of having managed a system of rigged contracts, with bribes for at least 620 thousand euros, part of which would have ended up on the party. Ábalos and García would have collected monthly payments of 10 thousand euros to encourage companies such as Acciona, Opr and Lic in multimilionary public tenders, even during the pandemic. The contracts under investigation exceed a total of 500 million euros, many of which are co -financed with European funds.
The turning point announced by Sánchez was judged insufficient by some PSOE managers, who ask for an extraordinary congress. A former regional leader even suggested that he immediately returned to the vote. Meanwhile, the premier has started consultations with the coalition partners, starting with the Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz, leader of the minor partner Sumar, who has boiled the apologies of Sánchez as inadequate and invoked a government “reset”.
Avoid the government crisis
Despite the tensions, it appears unlikely that the coalition partners cause a break. The drop in Sumar’s polls and the fear of an ascent of the extreme right push the small allies not to risk new elections. The fear is that an early vote can bring Vox to the government in coalition with the popular party.
Taking advantage of this fragility of the opponents, Sánchez has relaunched the challenge in Parliament: “They present a motion of censorship and tell Parliament and the people what kind of country they want for Spain”, he said, trying to overturn political pressure on the popular party and Vox.
