Yesterday, a Supreme Court judge ordered Santos Cerdán, until two weeks ago the PSOE’s organization secretary and Sánchez’s right-hand man, to prison without bail and incommunicado. Cerdán had accompanied Sánchez—along with José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, also indicted by the judge—in the mid-last decade to retake the PSOE’s general secretariat. Sánchez had been expelled from this position by the federal executive for attempting to negotiate a government with separatists and ETA’s heirs, which ultimately happened after Sánchez won the PSOE primaries.
The judge has charged Santos Cerdán with several crimes, including leading a “criminal organization” that rigged public works contracts to collect kickbacks. The judge leaves open the question of whether, as seems probable, others beyond Cerdán, Ábalos, and Koldo García benefited from this corruption in the bid-rigging, which inevitably required more participants. Among others, it would have required the connivance of those who ultimately manipulated the contract awards.
The suspicion that the Socialist Party itself might also have been financed through this scheme has not been dispelled, despite Sánchez’s insistence that he was deceived by his friends. The PSOE will hold an executive meeting this weekend to try to wipe the slate clean and assure its partners that Sánchez is willing to try
