New revelations that senior figures in his Socialist Party were allegedly involved in a kickback scheme have thrust Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez into his deepest crisis since taking office seven years ago.
Audio gathered by investigators and made public on Thursday appeared to show Santos Cerdán, the Socialist Party’s number three, discussing large sums of money to be charged in exchange for public contracts. Two other men appear to take part in the recorded conversations: José Luis Ábalos, a former senior figure in the party and transport minister who is already being investigated for corruption, and Koldo García, a former adviser of his, who reportedly recorded the audio and is also being investigated.
In one of the recordings, Cerdán and García appear to acknowledge that Ábalos is due to receive about €1 million in exchange for the awarding of several contracts.
The scandal surrounding Ábalos exploded last year. Although it was damaging for the government, his departure from the cabinet in 2021 and swift removal from the party when he came under suspicion limited its impact somewhat. But the implication of Cerdán, a close ally of Sánchez who he had defended for months from accusations published in the media, comes as a severe blow.
On Thursday, Sánchez apologised to Spaniards eight times in a televised appearance in which he appeared to acknowledge his former colleague’s guilt.
“Until this morning I considered all Santos’s explanations to be true,” he said, explaining his mind had been changed by evidence that was “very, very serious”.
“The Socialist Party and I should not have trusted him,” Sánchez added.
Cerdán has resigned from the party and said he will give up his parliamentary seat, although he has insisted on his innocence.
Until now, the government had warned that a right-wing witch hunt was being waged by judges and the media to fabricate corruption scandals.
Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, has been investigated for possible business irregularities and his brother, David Sánchez, is due to go on trial for alleged influence peddling. Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz, a Sánchez ally, is also likely to go on trial for revealing confidential information. Meanwhile, a former Socialist operative, Leire Díez, has been caught on tape offering favourable treatment to a businessman in exchange for incriminating information on the police unit carrying out inquiries into several cases affecting the government.
The latest development has emboldened the leader of the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who for months has been casting the government as inherently corrupt.
“If anyone had any doubts about what we considered to be a mafia-like network behind the party of government and behind the government itself, I imagine they have now disappeared,” he said.
Núñez Feijóo has been calling for Sanchez to call a snap election. Despite the Cerdán revelations, Sánchez has said he intends to see the legislature through until 2027.
The Socialist’s fate is now in the hands of his parliamentary allies, most of whom supported him in 2018 when he took power by winning a no-confidence motion against a corruption-ridden PP government. His coalition partner, the left-wing Sumar, is among those to express deep concern at the Cerdán scandal. If any of his leftist and nationalist allies were to withdraw their support, as the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) has hinted it might consider doing, depending on how the case progresses, it would almost certainly bring down the government.
However, an alternative administration would likely be formed by the PP and the far-right Vox, both of which have alienated Catalan and Basque nationalists with their aggressive unionism. Sánchez’s immediate future, therefore, looks bleak but still hard to determine.
