Neither the accusations against Paco Salazar for sexual harassment nor the Santos Cerdán scandal nor the rest of the information that may emanate from the Koldo case. None of these contrasts will change Pedro Sánchez's plans to continue aspiring to a new mandate in 2027. This is the intention that the President of the Government has expressed in recent weeks and that this Monday has ratified the Minister of Justice, Presidency and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños. Not only that, but the Socialist Party will improve “much” the results of the elections of July 23, 2023.
“The candidate in 2027 is going to be Pedro Sánchez and I want to make a forecast. Sánchez will be a candidate and we will improve the result of 23J,” Bolaños defended in the middle of the most critical moment for his party. The minister has justified his forecasts in which Spain “needs a solid leader” and would be a “disaster” the “involution” that would represent a PP government with Vox. “The Congress that has celebrated the PP has opted for involved, hyperventilated, rude profiles. Most Spaniards do not want that, that's why the PSOE will have a great result,” he defended.
In conversation with journalists Esther Palomera, Lucía Mendez and Josep Capella, at the breakfasts of the Athenaeum, Bolaños has defended Sánchez's management since he was in charge of the party. “After Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE will continue to exist but he is a leader who has achieved popular support levels that we did not know in recent times. He takes the PSOE with an intention to vote of 20%, and a certain risk of being sipped by Podemos. In that context Sánchez is done with the leadership and in the last elections he exceeded 31% of the vote,” he said.
“He is a national and international recognized leader who has enough years of government,” said the minister. His forecast is that things “will be put in place”, citizens will verify that the case of Santos Cerdán is limited to “very few people” and then the PSOE “will go out to win the elections.
This is the political diagnosis that the minister has made on Monday, at the most critical moment for Sánchez since he arrived at La Moncloa and after a federal committee that was planned to be a relaunch scenario but that he was tarnished since Friday by the information of Eldiario.es with complaints of several women against the former leader Paco Salazar. The socialist leader planned to place his collaborator as attached to the Ministry of Organization of the Party after the meeting of the Directorate on Saturday.
Bolaños has assured that the party acted immediately, although it has asked not to prejudge until the complaints are clarified. “They are cases and facts that hurt and affect us,” he said asking about that case and also for the cause of corruption investigating justice and that for now he has left the former secretary of Socialist Organization, Santos Cerdán, in pretrial detention for his alleged link with the plot of public works contracts.
“To the progressive electorate I understand that it seems unacceptable what we have known both in the matter of corruption and such an offensive and degrading treatment with women,” he said, to insist below on the idea that this case affects a small group and that in no case will spit the party or permeate in other government ministries: “There are very few people affected, it is true that they have had very high positions in the party.” “We have to recover confidence,” he said.
The first stop on the way to recover that trust will be on July 9, in the appearance of Sánchez in the Congress of Deputies. Parliamentary partners have demanded that the president go with concrete measures. Bolaños has advanced that there will be a “powerful package” of measures against corruption. “On Wednesday the president will announce a powerful package of measures against corruption to recover citizenship and so that these cases, very serious. Do not stain the agenda of this government against corruption,” he said.
“This government does not resist, it is going to deepen the transformation agenda of our country,” said Bolaños, who has defended the management of coalition ministers and their economic results. In addition, he has ruled out a matter of parliamentary trust, a mechanism that he has said makes sense when the Government considers that it has lost its majority in Congress when carrying out laws and initiatives.
For Bolaños, that trust has not been lost, as it shows that even after the Civil Guard report that implies AA Santos Cerdán, the Government has continued to approve laws. “We won 90% of the voting,” he defended. The approved law counter is 36, according to their data, and has foreseen that in the extraordinary plenary sessions of July another seven will be carried out, counting three reais decrees pending validate. “We continue to rule and pass laws, there is no problem of parliamentary trust,” he concluded.
