Pedro Sanchez plunges Spain into uncertainty. Spain’s prime minister has announced he may resign after a Spanish court opened an investigation into his wife, Begona Gomez, pushing the country into uncharted political territory and raising the possibility of new general elections.
Pedro Sanchez suspended his activities over the weekend and declared, in an open letter, that he would consider his possible resignation and announce his decision next Monday, thus paralyzing the Spanish political system for five days.
The decision came just hours after a complaint was filed against his wife for “corruption” and “influence peddling”.
The announcement of the judicial investigation was brought up in Congress and mentioned by Pedro Sanchez, in response to a question about the confidence he has in the Spanish judicial system.
Sanchez called the accusations an attack by right-wing and far-right forces and said he no longer knew whether being prime minister “was worth it.”
The political leader says the complaints against his wife are “baseless”, insisting they were only made in an attempt to “delegitimize” his role as prime minister.
“In short, it is an operation of harassment and demolition by land, sea and air, in an attempt to weaken me politically and personally by attacking my wife”he wrote.
“I am not naive. I know that they denounce Begona not because she did something illegal, they know there is no case, but because she is my wife”he continued, before adding:
“Because I am also fully aware that the attacks I suffer are not against me but against what I represent: a progressive political option, supported election after election by millions of Spaniards, based on economic progress, justice social and democratic regeneration”.
The complaint against Begona Gomez was filed in Madrid by the Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) union which represents public service employees.
In her complaint against Gomez, Manos Limpias claims that she had a friendship with a businessman, Carlos Barrabes, who obtained government contracts.
His consulting firm, temporarily merged with another firm, obtained contracts in 2020 and 2021 from the public entity Red.es which seeks to promote employment in the digital sector.
Carlos Barrabes gained the express support of Begona Gomez, who wrote a letter confirming her support for the company. The letter sent by Gomez said: “The management of the Master is aware of the initiative of Barrabes and La Vallée, promoted by Red.es and the ESF (European Social Fund). Through this letter, we express our support for this program which aims to find, train and integrate young unemployed people into the digital market.
The consultancy firm Barrabes subsequently won the contract and achieved the highest marks during the evaluation procedure. Begona Gomez’s activities have also been called into question by her relationship with the Spanish tourism group Globalia, which sponsored her career and which obtained more than 600 million euros in public money to save her then-struggling airline, Air Europa.
Manos Limpias asked the Madrid investigating court to summon Gomez to testify, take testimony from several witnesses and gather documents relating to public procurement.
Manos limpias, a collective founded in 1995, has been at the origin of several legal proceedings in recent years and has become a civil party in numerous trials for corruption cases. It is considered close to the extreme right, notably due to the personality of its founder Miguel Bernad, former leader of the Frente Nacional party, dissolved in 1993.
Accused of being involved in an extortion network, the latter was sentenced to four years in prison in July 2021, but was finally acquitted on appeal last month, for lack of evidence according to the court.
