The continuity of Pedro Sánchez as President of the Government is up in the air and not because any of his parliamentary partners have withdrawn their support and have put at risk the heterogeneous and complex majority that has supported him since last November, amnesty to the 'procés' through , but by own decision. In a new coup d'état, the head of the Executive announced this Wednesday in a letter to the citizens published on the social network Peinado, opened preliminary proceedings against his wife, Begoña Gómez, following a complaint from the Manos Limpes pseudo-union.
In the letter, in which he presents himself as a victim of a “harassment and demolition” operation by the right and extreme right, Sánchez communicates the suspension of his public agenda until next Monday, April 29. That day, he will be the one to explain what his decision was. There is a wide range of possibilities, from his departure, which would require a new investiture session, to its continuity, through a question of confidence or the calling of elections that would have a plebiscitary nature and that could not take place before the month of July, when a year has passed since the last general elections, also brought forward by surprise in a risky move from which, however, he emerged victorious.
«I'm not naive. I am aware that they are denouncing Begoña not because she has done something illegal, they know there is no case, but because she is my wife. As I am also fully aware that the attacks I suffer are not against me but rather against what I represent – he states in the text released this Wednesday -: a progressive political option supported election after election by millions of Spaniards, based on the progress economic, social justice and democratic regeneration.
That Sánchez was very affected by what he considers unjustified attacks on his wife already became very evident in the Executive control session this Wednesday. They explained it in his environment and it showed on his face. It was already striking, in fact, that it was not the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who referred to the actions of the controversial magistrate but himself, to a question from Esquerra spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, about his confidence in the Spanish justice system. . “On a day like today, and despite the news I have learned,” he said, “I continue to believe in the justice of my country.”
Sánchez is accompanied by an unbreakable legend that he himself has contributed to building. Just a few days ago, he boasted in an informal conversation with journalists that he had a “penguin skin” on which everything slips. Above all, the opposition's attacks. And there is his famous 'Resistance Manual', the book in which he told how he regained the general secretary of the PSOE in 2017 after being defenestrated in a traumatic Federal Committee. However, in the last general elections, after the failure of his party in the regional and municipal elections in May, he chose to expose his most sensitive side.
“Deep in love”
That commitment to showing himself as a man of flesh and blood and the story of a crusade against the reactionary wave that was sweeping the world, represented in Spain by the PP and Vox, were his main assets. In this Wednesday's letter both are present. Sánchez declares himself “deeply in love with his wife”, questions whether it is worth putting his family through situations like the ones he is experiencing, and charges directly against his two main adversaries.
«They were aware that the political attack would not be enough and now they have crossed the line of respect for the family life of a President of the Government and the attack on his personal life. Without any embarrassment, Mr. Feijóo and Mr. Abascal and the interests that move them have launched what the great Italian writer Umberto Eco called the mud machine. That is, trying to dehumanize and delegitimize the political adversary through accusations that are as scandalous as they are false,” he says.
He also tries to dismantle what he knows is a belief already installed in a good part of Spanish society. «Despite the caricature that the right and the extreme right in politics and the media have tried to make of me, I have never been attached to the position. Yes, I have it due to duty, to the political commitment of public service, he says. “I don't go through positions, I assert the legitimacy of these high responsibilities to transform and advance the country I love.”
Already in the morning, the Executive had accused the Popular Party of crossing “all the red lines.” The PP is not behind Manos Limpas' complaint, but in recent months, since information was published as a result of the 'Koldo case' that somewhat tangentially related Gómez to the rescue of the Air Europa company in the pandemic, They have brought up the issue on a recurring basis. They even took it to the Conflict of Interest Office – which rejected it – and they have played with the idea that they could call Sánchez's wife, an expert in raising funds for the third sector (NGOs, foundations, museums, associations without profit motive…), to the investigative commission opened in the Senate on public contracts carried out in the covid crisis, which acts as a mirror of the one created by the socialists and their partners in Congress.
This Wednesday, the party's deputy secretary of Education and Health, Ester Muñoz, also insisted that Sánchez must give explanations about “why the Government finances companies that Begoña Gómez recommends” and pointed out several relatives of the president for alleged reprehensible behavior regarding the that there is no judicial action. «We have his father-in-law, who gets rich with saunas and we all know what type of saunas I am referring to – she came to say –; we have his father, who is enriched by Next Generation funds; we have his brother, who curiously has moved his residence 16 kilometers from Spain just to avoid paying taxes, a curious form of patriotism; and of course we have the scandals around his wife.
The spokesperson for the socialist group, Patxi López, gave voice to the indignation in his party, also expressed by the vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero, or the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares. “One is beginning to be fed up with this strategy in which accusations are made without any evidence just to harm, dirty and defame,” he reproached.
Ayuso's boyfriend
The socialists reject comparisons with the case of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's boyfriend, Alberto González Amador, accused of two crimes of tax fraud and one of document falsification allegedly committed through his company Maxwell Cremona. Another matter that has further poisoned the relationship between the two major parties and that has also put the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, even more in the pillory for filing the complaint that González Amador filed for revelation of secrets, after leaking confidential data from the agreement that his lawyer was negotiating with the Madrid Prosecutor's Office.
The popular ones, however, insist that this matter refers to a pattern in the Government's way of acting and, to illustrate this, they appeal to a note released by the Executive to some media early in the morning about the investigation into Begoña Gomez. “If this is the case, we will appeal this judicial decision immediately,” he said. The PP denounces that from this statement it is clear that the Secretary of State for Communication “already provides coverage for Pedro Sánchez's partner” and that the president “intends to put the State Attorney's Office at the disposal of his wife.” In Moncloa they reply that the note was of no official nature and allege that the PP is trying to equate its behavior with that of Ayuso's chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, who has personally taken the reins, they say, of the media defense of his boss's boyfriend. .
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