Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday said he would stay on as prime minister after threatening to stand down over what he has denounced as a campaign of political harassment by the right.
“I have decided to stay,” he said in a highly-anticipated public address that drew a line under days of political uncertainty that had gripped the country for the past five days.
In office since 2018, the 52-year-old Socialist leader had on Wednesday written a letter to the public saying he was taking time out to mull his possible resignation after a Madrid court confirmed a preliminary probe into his wife, Begona Gomez, for suspected influence peddling and corruption.
Photo: AP
Denying the move was a “political calculation,” Sanchez said he needed “to stop and reflect” on the growing polarization within politics, which he said was increasingly being driven by “deliberate disinformation.”
“For too long we’ve let this filth corrupt our political and public life with toxic methods that were unimaginable just a few years ago... Do we really want this for Spain?” he asked. “I have acted out of a clear conviction: Either we say ‘enough is enough’ or this degradation of public life will define our future and condemn us as a country.”
He said his decision to stay on had been “decisively influenced” by the mass show of support outside the Madrid headquarters of the Socialist party, where thousands of emotional supporters had chanted: “Pedro, stay.”
The public prosecutor’s office on Thursday asked that the investigation into Gomez be closed, but Sanchez, an expert in political survival who has made a career out of taking political gambles, held his silence.
He had been due to launch his party’s campaign on Thursday for the May 12 Catalonia regional elections in which his Socialists are hoping to oust the pro-independence forces from power.
The court opened its investigation into Sanchez’s wife in response to a complaint by anti-corruption pressure group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), whose leader is linked to the far right.
Shortly after Sanchez’s bombshell letter went out on X, the group, which has presented a litany of unsuccessful lawsuits against politicians in the past, said it had based its complaint on media reports and could not vouch for their veracity.
While the court did not give details of the case, online news site El Confidencial said it was related to her ties to several private companies that received government funding or won public contracts.
Sanchez has been vilified by right-wing opponents and media because his minority government relies on the support of the hard left and Catalan and Basque separatist parties to pass laws.
They have been especially angered by his decision to grant an amnesty to hundreds of Catalan separatists facing legal action over their roles in the northeastern region’s failed push for independence in 2017.
That amnesty, in exchange for the support of Catalan separatist parties, still needs final approval in parliament.
The opposition has since Wednesday mocked Sanchez’s decision to withdraw from his public duties as an attempt to rally his supporters.
“A head of government can’t make a show of himself like a teenager and have everyone running after him, begging him not to leave and not to get angry,” right-wing opposition leader and Popular Party head Alberto Nunez Feijoo said on Thursday.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS