Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has said he has cancelled his public duties for the next few days and is considering his future after a judge opened an investigation into his wife’s business dealings.
Mr Sánchez said he will take a decision on whether to continue as Spanish leader on Monday.
It was revealed on Wednesday that a Madrid court has decided to investigate a claim against Begoña Gómez, who is married to the Socialist prime minister, accusing her of influence-peddling and business corruption.
The allegations are based on her links to companies that have received government support and public contracts. The case has been brought against Ms Gómez by Miguel Bernad, head of Clean Hands, a self-styled civil servants’ labour union.
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According to court documents to which Spanish media have had access, Mr Bernad accuses Ms Gómez of “recommending or supporting with her signature business people who were competing for public contracts… benefiting from her personal status as wife of the prime minister”.
He bases his lawsuit on reports published in several media outlets.
According to El Confidencial news site, which has been publishing allegations against Ms Gómez, the research hub she represents had a relationship with businessman Javier Hidalgo and she met him in person when he was negotiating a Covid rescue package with the government. Air Europa airline, of which Mr Hidalgo’s father is chairman, ended up receiving a package reportedly worth €475 million.
The news site also reported that Ms Gómez signed letters supporting a consortium’s successful bid for government contracts worth €10.2 million.
The opposition has been using the news reports to attack Mr Sánchez for several weeks.
In a letter to Spaniards published on social media, Mr Sánchez said the right was orchestrating a campaign of “harassment and demolition by every means possible, in order to make me fail in the political arena and in the personal arena by attacking my wife”.
He named conservative opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo and far-right leader Santiago Abascal as being part of this campaign.
“Pedro Sánchez is taking a long time to give an explanation and he is taking a long time to explain to Spaniards how it is possible that his wife did business from [the prime minister’s residence] la Moncloa,” said the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, of the conservative Popular Party (PP).
“Pedro Sánchez is taking a long time to give an explanation and he is taking a long time to explain to Spaniards how it is possible that his wife did business from [the prime minister’s residence] la Moncloa,” said the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, of the conservative Popular Party (PP).
During a parliamentary debate, Mr Sánchez made only a brief reference to the news that his wife was being investigated. “On a day like today and despite the news I have heard about, despite everything, I still believe in my country’s justice system,” he said.
Mr Sánchez’s allies have cast doubt on the lawsuit brought by Mr Bernad, portraying it as part of efforts by the opposition to weaken the coalition government. Justice minister Félix Bolaños described it as “another false claim”.
Deputy prime minister María José Montero said the government would not allow “these Trumpian practices to undermine democracy in Spain, which has been built with so much effort”.
The opening of the investigation does not mean Ms Gómez has been charged or named as a suspect in the case. Mr Bernad and Clean Hands, which have been closely linked to the far right in the past, have previously presented a litany of lawsuits against politicians for corruption, most of which have not flourished.
Clean Hands’s unsuccessful suits have included ones brought against a judge who was seeking to investigate human rights crimes during the Spanish dictatorship, against Cameroonian footballer Samuel Eto’o for chanting an insult against Real Madrid, and against children’s TV programme Los Lunnis for allegedly violating the honour of minors by depicting two puppets of the same sex getting married. It also failed to have King Felipe’s sister, Princess Cristina, convicted for tax-related crimes.
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