Pedro Sánchez continues… white is black

Sanchez GomezPedro Sánchez and his wife, Begoña Gómez

Unusual: Pedro Sánchez continues… The PSOE denies the evidence and backs Pedro Sánchez, who, surrounded by corruption, speaks of “harassment” and lashes out against the right, the ultra-right, the judges, the press…

On the same day that a judge opened proceedings to find out whether the president’s wife had committed a criminal offence (an opening of proceedings that, in another unprecedented decision, has been appealed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which depends on the Government), President Sánchez wrote a letter to the public explaining that he is “deeply in love with his wife” and that he is taking five days to reflect on “whether it is worth it” to continue in the presidency of the Government at this price. Yes, it is worth it. Pedro Sánchez continues.

He says that too many red lines have been crossed. Although he, from his seat in Congress, cheered his vice-president when she told the opposition leader that he had given subsidies to his wife’s company when the PP leader governed in Galicia. An accusation that turned out to be false.

The period of reflection opened by Sánchez – which ended today at 11 a.m. – has generated a wave of unwavering support for the PSOE leader: in his party, in the pro-independence forces backing his government, in the pro-government press…

Meanwhile, the other half of Spain, which Sánchez disparagingly calls “the fachosphere”, was convinced that it was all a tactical manoeuvre, “squid ink”, and that the man who came to the presidency of the Government negotiating an amnesty to get the seven votes of the fugitive Puigdemont was not thinking of leaving but of looking for a pretext for a new onslaught that would allow him to take control of the only state power he does not yet control, the judiciary.

So there is more fear than anything else of the desperate reaction of a leader who appeals directly to public opinion – with me or against me – and who takes offence but is incapable of denying the facts: his wife wrote a letter of recommendation for a company to be awarded a public tender worth several million euros. The partners of this company supported the activities of the president’s wife with funds. The president’s wife, Begoña Gómez, met with the owners of an airline company while the government bailed it out with hundreds of millions of euros…

All this, published by El Confidencial, The Objective and other media, is documented and has not been denied. And it would undoubtedly have provoked the resignation of any leader in an advanced democracy. But Sánchez and his associates say that it is all hoaxes, that it is an unfounded campaign of harassment based on press clippings and that there is no crime… Something the judges will have to rule on.

In the new political strategy of Sánchez’s PSOE, it would seem that everything that is not expressly prohibited is permitted: from reaching government by negotiating the support of a fugitive in exchange for an amnesty to the president’s wife doing business with companies directly benefited by the Administration…

In Spain, no article of the Penal Code will allow a judge to open criminal proceedings against a father who has intimate relations with his daughter if she is of legal age. No, nobody has legislated about it. Nor about a thousand other things that are hard to imagine. But it is doubtful that such a thing could be socially accepted.

So half of Spain now fears that everything will degenerate… even more. Because, as of today, of the three branches of government, Sánchez wields 2.5 with an iron fist: He governs. Legislates. And as for the judiciary, he controls the public prosecutor’s office, pardons, amnesties? And he aspires to appoint the members of the judges’ governing body.

As for the press, the so-called fourth estate, the spectacle is deplorable… I think that the day the professor explained that the press is there to support the government, some of us missed that class.


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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.