Spain: 4 keys to understand the corruption scandal that affects the surroundings of President Pedro Sánchez

Sanchez has apologized to the Spaniards and voters of the PSOE for having trusted in Cerdán, but has refused to resign or to advance the call for general elections, as the conservative opposition asks for.

The first accusations, which were uncovered in February 2024, date back to the Covid pandemic and point to an alleged corruption plot in which millionaire contracts would have been granted to buy masks in 2020.

According to the investigations of the Prosecutor's Office and the Civil Guard, it is suspected that this plot paid prices inflated by the masks, that some of those bought were of poor quality and that, in addition, part of the money went to illegal commissions.

But the mask contracts seem to be just the tip of the iceberg, according to the investigation carried out by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard under the name of “Operation Delorm”.

The corrupt plot would also be involved, according to its investigations, in the award of public works and services to certain companies in exchange for the collection of illegal commissions, as well as the use of screen companies to bleach that money.

The UCO research not only points to several socialist politicians, but to entrepreneurs linked to large companies such as Acciona and others.

The investigation initially led to the arrest in 2024 of almost twenty people among whom were entrepreneurs, achievement and a political advisor linked to the PSOE, Koldo García, which is considered a central axis of the corrupt plot.

Garcia was accused of criminal operation, influences, bribery and money laundering.

But his arrest dragged at that time a heavyweight of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, which had been up to 2021 transport minister and secretary of organization of the PSOE, the third place with more power of the formation.

Ábalos has been indicated by the investigation for his proximity to Koldo García, who was his personal advisor for years, and investigates whether he could act as a plot facilitator.

The former minister is being investigated by the Supreme Court for four crimes: influence peddling, belonging to a criminal organization, bribery and embezzlement.

Ábalos was the protagonist in 2020 of another case that shook the executive, when he met at the Madrid airport with the Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez, who was prohibited from entering the Schengen territory through the European Union. The conservative press in Spain baptized him as the “Delcygate”.

The then minister denied having met her, then changed his version several times, and the story was used by the opposition of the conservative Popular Party (PP) and Vox (outraged), to wear his credibility and that of the Government, despite the fact that judicially the case was closed.

However, the UCO investigation later revealed that Delcy Rodríguez maintained links with some people in the corrupt plot in which the former minister is also investigated.

The third major name that has uncovered the “Operation Delorme” is that of Santos Cerdán, precisely the person who replaced Ábalos at the head of the PSOE organization secretariat when the former minister was dismissed by Sánchez.

Cerdán was a man of the greatest confidence of the President of the Government and had great power in the party.

Sanchez himself said when he uncovered the alleged link of Cerdán with the corrupt plot that “until that same morning” had believed in the explanations provided by the man he himself put as number 3 of the PSOE.

Santos Cerdán was also one of the people who supported Sánchez when he presented himself as a candidate for the party's primary in 2014, when few bet on him.

The recordings of the UCO, in which Cerdán, Ábalos and Koldo García allegedly speak of bites, have also revealed another corruption. In one of the messages, Cerdán tells Garcia to introduce two ballots “without anyone seeing you” in the urn of those 2014 primaries, apparently in favor of Sánchez.

The now president of the Government won the primaries for a majority of more than 16,000 votes, so that alleged irregularity would not have affected the result. But this recording throws more shadows on the government of Sánchez.

Pedro Sánchez reached the presidency of the Government in 2018 after a motion of censure against the previous government, which was led by the conservative Mariano Rajoy and who had been weighed by a corruption scandal for which several members of the PP were sentenced.

The corruption that Sánchez came to clean seem now to affect people who have held great responsibility in their party.

But in his first appearance after knowing the latest revelations of the investigation, Sánchez ruled out to advance the call for general elections, which are scheduled for 2027.

The president of the Spanish Government has denied being aware of the case of corruption and has disconnected the issue of the party, ensuring that it is something that affects only a few people.

After Cesar to Santos Cerdán, Sánchez has proposed that an interim team direct the game until his next federal committee is held next month.

He has also ordered an audit that analyzes the accounts of the PSOE to dissipate doubts about the possibility that these bits were being used to illegally finance the party, something that the Civil Guard report does not speak.

But Sánchez directs a government in precarious balance, which needs several minority partners – among them the left and the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties – to stand up.

If any of them decided to leave the government coalition, Sánchez would be in a minority.

It is possible that the future of the coalition depends on whether the measures that the government now adopts to stop the scandal and reach the bottom of the corrupt plot convince its partners.

Both Vice President Yolanda Díaz, of the Al left Left coalition, and the Catalan nationalist left have assured that her supports depend on it.

The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has asked Sanchez to resign and go ahead, and has ruled out presenting a motion of censure. The numbers, for the moment, do not give him, and the conservative formation believes that he would give “an oxygen ball to Sanchismo.”

Feijóo has also appealed to the groups that support the government to leave what their party considers “a mafia.”

However, the alternative to the socialist government could end up being a coalition of the right of the PP and the extreme right of Vox, an option that neither the left nor the nationalists would like to see in the government.

Pedro Sánchez has ruled out that he will resign.

But in April 2024, the president of the Spanish Government maintained a dramatic suspense of five days about his future due to the decision of a court to open an investigation into the alleged involvement of his wife, Begoña Gómez, in a case of corruption and influence peddling.

The complaint was filed by several associations related to the extreme right and the VOX party, although the UCO made a report in which it did not find crimes and the Prosecutor's Office requested its file.

After five days in which he weighed whether to continue at the head of the government, Sánchez announced that he would not resign, he said that there were political motivations behind the accusations against his wife and that the true objective of the complaint was to end his executive.

But it is not the only case that affects the environment of the socialist leader.

The president of the president, David Sánchez, is also in the eye of justice and will go to trial of course influence peddling and prevarication for how he was granted the regional public office that he holds.

And the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, an ally of Sánchez, will also be tried for revealing confidential information in a case that involves the sentimental couple of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a heavyweight the PP.

In Spain, any person or political party can be presented as a particular accusation in a criminal process if it is considered a victim of a crime, something that has been used relatively frequently to wear out political adversaries.

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