Corruption allegations swirling around a former senior member of Spain’s right-wing People’s Party (PP) have offered an unexpected reprieve to socialist (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose government has been under mounting pressure due to a separate graft investigation.
‘I feel good and I feel strong,’ Sánchez told reporters during an informal exchange on his seventh official visit to Latin America, adding that his ‘batteries are fully charged’ as he reaches the midpoint of his second term in office. ALSO READ: Spain’s PM joins left-leaning leaders in Chile for ‘democracy always’ meeting.
Sánchez has been grappling with the fallout from a probe involving two prominent former socialist allies instrumental in his rise to power in 2018. The scandal has shaken his fragile left-leaning coalition and fuelled rumours of its potential collapse and early elections. ALSO READ: Pedro Sánchez vows not to quit, and presents 15-point anti-corruption plan.
Meanwhile, the PP, the main opposition, has seized on the scandal – alongside investigations into Sánchez’s wife and brother – to push an anti-corruption message aimed squarely at the socialists. ALSO READ: Sánchez battles to control PSOE crisis, as claims of sexual harassment force a new resignation.
However, a parallel case involving Cristóbal Montoro, who served as finance minister under PP prime ministers José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy between 2000-2004 and 2011-2018, has undercut that narrative. ALSO READ: People’s Party now hit by alleged corruption scandal surrounding former finance minister.
A judge last week lifted a confidentiality order on an investigation that began in 2018 and formally charged Montoro with bribery, fraud and abuse of power.
Prosecutors accuse him of building a ‘network of influence’ during his time in government, allegedly promoting legislation to benefit select companies in return for payments directed to consultancies he had established.
The charges claim that two firms linked to Montoro were used as ‘a way of channelling and distributing the payment of commissions’, resulting in approximately €48 million in profits.
Funds reportedly came from a broad array of sectors, including construction, energy, renewables and gambling.
Montoro is also alleged to have manipulated Spain’s tax authority to favour allies while pressuring individuals he viewed as obstacles – among them journalists and the president of the country’s top football league.
Sánchez, who unseated Rajoy in 2018 following a separate corruption conviction against the PP, has taken an aggressive stance over the Montoro revelations.
Rajoy’s time in office – from 2011 to 2018 – is widely criticised on the left for imposing strict austerity following the global financial crisis. Sánchez this week accused his government of having legislated ‘for individual interests linked to business elites, against the general interest’.
PP’s current leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has maintained a relatively low profile amid the unfolding scandal, expressing only that he backs the investigation.
But PP parliamentary spokesperson Ester Muñoz rejected any notion of moral equivalence between the main parties, arguing that Montoro’s alleged crimes are in the past, while the socialists are currently under scrutiny.
Meanwhile, the far-right Vox party, now the third-largest in Spain’s legislature and rising in the polls, is taking advantage of the corruptions scandals, claiming to be the only viable alternative to Spain’s two main parties.
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