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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he was considering resigning after a judge opened a preliminary investigation into his wife on corruption charges.
Socialist Party leaders canceled official engagements over the next few days and said they would announce future decisions on April 29.
in special letter “The natural question I ask myself at this point is, ‘Is it worth it?'” Sanchez told the Nation. To be honest, I don’t know. ”
Earlier on Wednesday, Judge Juan Carlos Peinado ordered court proceedings against Sanchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, for allegedly receiving favors from private companies that won government tenders and received public funds. started.
“This attack is unprecedented, so serious and brutal that I need to pause and reflect with my wife,” Sanchez wrote on social media.
Sanchez is one of the most senior leaders of the center-left movement in continental Europe, which is increasingly moving to the right, and came to power in 2018, replacing a conservative prime minister who was ousted amid corruption allegations.
He began his new term late last year after an inconclusive general election, assembling a coalition government backed by a fragile parliamentary majority.
The case against Gomez was launched after a trade union called Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) filed a complaint based on a series of articles published by news organizations, in particular El Confidential.
Sanchez called these articles “false” output of “right-wing and far-right media.”
Manos Limpias alleges that Gomez received favors from executives at Air Europa and its parent company Globia as head of the Center for African Studies, which he ran for almost four years until 2022 at the IE University in Madrid. There is.
Manos Limpias links her work to the 475 million euro government bailout that airlines received at the end of 2020 as they struggled to survive the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Gomez has remained silent about the allegations in recent weeks. Globalia declined to comment.
IE University acknowledged receiving four airline tickets from Globalia as part of an event sponsorship deal in 2020, but said it had never received any money from the company or the Africa Center.
Sánchez linked the judicial move to the renewed resentment and toxicity in Spanish politics since last July’s elections.
He took control of the case against his wife after the leaders of the conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox party, Alberto Nuñez Feijao and Santiago Abascal, sparked an uproar over initial media reports. He said he did.
“In this inhumanity… together with the far-right Online Galaxy and the organization Manos Limpias, both are necessary collaborators,” he wrote.
“In short, this is a campaign of harassment and sabotage by land, sea, and air aimed at weakening me both politically and personally by attacking my wife.”
Sanchez added that his wife will “defend her honor” and cooperate with law enforcement authorities.
The charges against her center on events that “do not exist,” he said.
Feiju said in a radio interview on Wednesday evening that he had never called for an investigation into Sanchez’s wife and that the prime minister had released a letter “saying false things to the prime minister.”
Earlier, Vox MP Pepa Rodríguez de Milan said the Socialist Party was mired in a “very serious corruption case”.
Sanchez’s conservative opponents differ ideologically from him on fiscal, labor, energy, and environmental policies.
But their greatest anger was caused by his willingness to collaborate with separatist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country, whose goal is to sever ties with the rest of Spain.
The most controversial move of Sánchez’s appointment as prime minister was a bill granting amnesty to Catalan separatists involved in the 2017 independence movement. This bill has not yet passed Congress.
The pardon was the price Mr. Sánchez had to pay to secure the parliamentary votes he needed to begin another term after the election.
