The Prime Minister of Spain, the Socialist Pedro Sánchez, announced on Monday that he will continue to lead the country's government.
"After reflection, I have decided to continue. I will continue with greater strength," he promised, in a statement in Madrid, at the Moncloa Palace, the seat of government, in which he also thanked the "solidarity and empathy" he has received in recent days - in Madrid, more than 10,000 people, according to the local authorities, gathered in the street, in the vicinity of the building, in support of the Prime Minister, with calls for him not to resign.
"This campaign of harassment and defamation will not stop," he said, but it is possible to "stand up to it".
"I take the decision to continue, if possible even more strongly. This is not about the fate of a particular leader. It's about deciding what kind of society we want to be. Our country needs this reflection. For too long we have allowed the mud to contaminate our public life."
Sánchez revealed that he was considering resigning last Wednesday, the day a Madrid court confirmed the opening of a "preliminary inquiry" into alleged influence peddling and corruption by his wife, Begoña Gomez, following a complaint by an organization with far-right ties based on allegations and articles published on websites and digital media.
Sam Jones
The case involving Gómez involves links to private companies, such as the airline Air Europa, which received public support during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis or signed contracts with the state when her husband was prime minister.
The Public Prosecutor's Office filed the complaint the following day, considering that there was no evidence of wrongdoing to justify criminal proceedings.
Victims of the right-wing "slime machine
The leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Madrid government said earlier that he and his wife had been victims of the "slime machine" of the right and far right (Partido Popular and Vox) for months and that he didn't know if it was worth continuing in office in the face of an "unprecedented attack, so serious and so crude".
"We often forget that behind politicians there are people," he said in a text published on the social network X.
PSOE leaders, meeting in a Federal Commission, the highest body between congresses, denounced a "dirty war" by the Spanish right and far-right against the Prime Minister and his family, based on disinformation campaigns on the Internet, comparing it to other cases in Brazil, the United States, Argentina and "many European countries".
"Shameful "spectacle
The Popular Party (PP) and Vox accuse Sánchez of victimizing himself and putting on "a show" that shames the country internationally, in order to divert attention from various suspicions of corruption and to campaign on the eve of various elections (regional in Catalonia and European in June).
"Don't be fooled. Spain doesn't have a problem, it's Mr. Sánchez who has a judicial problem" because of "alleged cases of corruption affecting his government, his party and people close to him", said PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Saturday.
Sánchez, at the head of the Spanish government since 2018, has also been attacked over a judicial investigation into an advisor to a former Socialist minister who allegedly charged illegal commissions to sell masks during the pandemic to public bodies, including regional governments then in the hands of the PSOE.
This case led to the creation of committees of inquiry in parliament, supported by the Socialists, into the purchase of sanitary equipment by public administrations during the Covid-19 crisis. The work of these committees began last week.
