June 11. It is a usual Wednesday in the life of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. The day starts in Congress, defends the State Attorney General in the control session before the accusations of the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. That day he talks to Pope Leo XIV for the first time, Spain signs a historical pact with the United Kingdom on Gibraltar. But after 21.30 at night, information from Eldiario.es removes the political scenario and activate the brilliant fall of one of the maximum trusted men for the socialist leader, his then secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdán. The exclusive points to the existence of compromising audios that place Sánchez number two on the edge of the imputation.
The sinking of the former socialist leader has been one of the fastest that is remembered in Spanish political history. Until June 11, Santos Cerdán was a person of extreme confidence for the president of the Government, the coordinator of the most important matters of the party and the main interlocutor with the most delicate partners of the Government: Junts and EH Bildu. Just 15 days later, the former leader, already dispossessed of all his organic and institutional positions, entered the prison of Soto del Real by placing him the supreme in the center of a case of corruption that puts the government against the ropes. This is a chronology of a fall in three acts and just two weeks.
First act | The audios of the Civil Guard: the denial
June 11, 21.36 h. elDiario.es And shortly after the SER chain publish the first information that points to Santos Cerdán. The news reveals that the Central Operating Unit (UCO) has recordings that seized Koldo García during his detention and that the magistrate is about to raise the summary secret on a separate piece of the cause. The conversations in which the former socialist leader appears, then points to research sources, place it at a step away from the imputation.
June 11, 22.00 h. The PSOE rejects any link of Cerdán with anything illegal in a sharp statement. “Santos Cerdán has not participated, much less influenced, in public works awards. He has never charged a commission for it,” says the text that disseminates the party just half an hour after the news and still without knowing in detail the content of the Civil Guard report. News and rumors were circulating months on an investigation of the UCO against the then 'number three' of the party. But until that moment the confidence in him of the Socialists, including Sánchez, was total. Santos Cerdán transferred his innocence to the President.
June 12, 10.00 h. Santos Cerdán goes normally to Congress and offers brief statements to the media in the hall, before entering the hemicycle: “I do not know how I can defend myself from a report that is not known. But I am very calm, because I have not committed any illegality.” Some partners such as adding begin to worry and ask for explanations to the PSOE. The PP, directly, speaks of “resignations.” The report of the UCO and some socialist leaders, such as Navarros, still maintain confidence in Cerdán.
June 12, 12.30 pm. The media begin to publish the report, once the summary secret is raised. The transcripts of the audios are devastating and leave the doubts little. Santos Cerdán is sitting on his seat. Holds the mobile horizontally and slides the screen with the thumb. A photographer captures the image. You are reading the report. He has pressed the search command, control+F and has typed his own name. There he can read that the judge finds “consistent signs” against him and that he offers to declare voluntarily. Several ministers confess in 'shock', already talk about a deep disappointment. Trust has broken and ask the president to take drastic measures.
Second act | The resignation: the flight forward
June 12, 14.00 h. Santos Cerdán leaves Congress and addresses his office at the headquarters of the PSOE, on Ferraz Street. Analyze the report with your team more detail. He plans to give a press conference to offer explanations, but in La Moncloa they have already taken another course. The president calls him and asks him to resign.
June 12, 15.53 h. “I reiterate my innocence and I trust that it is clear after my statement. ”Cerdán concludes the letter in which he announces his resignation. He assures that he does it to devote himself“ exclusively ”to his defense and to be able to demonstrate that he has never committed any illegality or has been“ accomplice ”of any.
June 12, 5:00 p.m. Sánchez appears at the Ferraz headquarters. Answer several questions from journalists. He explains that he asked for the resignation of Cerdán and not vice versa, as the former leader had in his renunciation letter. Sanchez apologizes to citizens. “The PSOE and I shouldn't trust him,” he says. “Although the disappointment is great, the answer will always be overwhelming,” he promises, to end.
June 16, 15.00 h. Although he assured in his resignation that he would leave the deputy's act, the former socialist leader takes several days to do the process in Congress. During the weekend, in the PSOE the fear that he finally does not do so is to run and the socialist group is forced to expel him to the mixed, as happened with José Luis Ábalos. Finally, Monday afternoon delivers the minutes through a representative, who approaches Congress to formalize the procedure. Two days earlier, Cerdán takes advantage of the lack of activity of a Saturday almost summer to approach Ferraz to withdraw his things.
June 16, 5:00 p.m. As more information about the case, the pressure of the opposition, but also of the partners increases. Add and the rest of the parties that form the government ask for measures. In a long Executive Meeting of the PSOE, Sánchez reformulates the Ministry of Organization temporarily and is determined to continue until 2027 despite the hard blow. Organic changes will formulate them in the following Federal Committee, scheduled for July 5.
Third act | The prison: the end
June 18, 12.00 h. Analyzed the first political impact, the focus begins to go to court. Santos Cerdán changes lawyer and chooses Benet Salellas for his defense after the resignation of his first lawyer. Salellas is known for defending Jordi Cuixart in the trial of the process and belongs to the scope of the Catalan independence left, since he even became a regional deputy of the CUP.
June 18, 5:00 p.m. The scandal charges a new political victim. Ramón Alzórriz, until now 'number two' of the Socialists in Navarra, Land Natal and Operations Center of the former Director, leaves his responsibilities forced by President María Chivite. Alzórriz is the person who defended him on the morning of June 12. The reason for its cessation: hide that your partner worked from 2021 to 2024 for the company Servinabar 2000, a construction company that, according to the UCO, controls in 45% from the Shadow Cerdán and represents one of the central pieces of corruption research.
June 20, 10.00 h. The judge of the case, Leopold Puente, postpones the declaration of Santos Cerdán a few days, until June 30, to give time to the new lawyer to prepare the defense of the former socialist leader. At the same time, he cites as investigated to five entrepreneurs who would have participated in the plot of Amaños. And make a decision that will produce a hard image in the following hours.
June 20, 13.00 h. The UCO enters the Ferraz headquarters and the offices of several agencies belonging to the Ministry of Transport. The agents seek by order of the judge clone the mail accounts of Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos. It is not a record as they try to sell some PP leaders but the image is still devastating for the PSOE and the government.
June 23, 14.30 h. José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García in court. The magistrate takes them a statement and although he sees “solid signs” against them after the UCO report does not dictate preventive detention for any as asked the popular accusation. It maintains the precautionary measures that already weighed against both of the passport and appearance in the court every 15 days.
June 29, 8:00 p.m. Santos Cerdán prepares to declare in court. It is an important day. His words can free him from prison like Ábalos and Koldo or can cause the judge to send him directly to jail. The politician plans with his lawyer the strategy and decides to refute the content of the audios of the UCO and show his assets as proof that he has not enriched.
June 30, 12.00 h. Before the judge, follow the scheduled plan. He declares himself innocent and almost as a victim: he tells the magistrate that his imputation responds to his role as “architect” of the progressive government. It denies any illegality and also rejects any irregular financing of the PSOE.
June 30, 5:30 p.m. The judge does not believe Santos Cerdán. The strategy fails and Leopoldo Puente decides to send it to pretrial prison without bail, before the stupor of their party partners. The magistrate attributes crimes of bribery, criminal organization and influence peddling and believes that there is a risk of destroying evidence. He no longer leaves the court by his own foot. He does it in a Civil Guard van that something later enters the prison of Soto del Real, the first destination of many of the corrupt public positions of the PP, from Rodrigo Rato to Francisco Granados or Luis Bárcenas.
The former socialist leader consumes a fall from the top of politics to prison in just 15 days. It has been two weeks of vertigo that have made the legislature jump through the air and placed to the government at a critical point.
