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Pedro Sánchez’s decision to stay in office after taking a five-day break to reflect on his future has only aggravated a hyper-personalised debate over the integrity of Spain’s prime minister.
The Socialist leader sought to take the moral high ground on Monday after his wife became the target of a corruption investigation, appealing to his compatriots to help end the toxicity of national politics.
But his speech did not come across as the “inflection point” he said it marked. He blamed his right-wing opponents as the root of the problem — and did not acknowledge the capacity of his own side to spit bile.
In recent years the conservative opposition has sought to hammer home the derogatory idea of “Sanchismo”, the premier’s allegedly self-serving brand of politics. Now Spain is likely to be consumed by an even more ill-tempered debate over whether Sánchez is a victim of injustice, as he presented himself, or the corrupt narcissist his opponents perceive.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the opposition People’s party, described the PM’s speech as “the most dangerous of all” he has delivered. “He does not accept dissent. He wants a country that is tailored to him and at his service.”
Pilar G Muñiz, a host on COPE radio, said: “Sanchismo 3.0 has arrived.”
José María Aznar, a former conservative prime minister, likened Sánchez to a caudillo, or strongman — a label applied to Spain’s former dictator Francisco Franco. He described Sánchez’s speech as a “comedy of tear-inducing caudillismo”.
Last week a judge launched a preliminary investigation into Sánchez’s wife for alleged influence peddling after receiving a complaint from a group with far-right links. In response, the premier on Monday sought to position himself as leading the charge against a “global reactionary movement” that spreads defamation, falsehood and hatred.
Some analysts said Sánchez had made important points. “What I find saddest of all is that what he’s saying is necessary,” said Oriol Bartomeus, a political scientist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. “We need to think about how to reinforce our democratic systems. It’s clear that we cannot go on like this. But he’s made it so much about himself that it could be understood as a way to get out of a tough spot.”
Luis Garicano, a professor of public policy at the London School of Economics and a former centrist member of the European parliament, said: “I am very worried about Spain. If we did not have Europe, we would be falling into the Latin American populist caudillo path. He is going to continue governing by making it ‘us’ versus ‘them’, the fascists.”
Ministers in Sánchez’s cabinet, who did not know whether he would stay or quit until he spoke on Monday, expressed relief that he had made the “right” decision.
But other former allies were less courteous. Pablo Iglesias, former head of the radical left Podemos party, who once served as Sánchez’s deputy prime minister, described it as “ridiculous” that the PM last week decried “lawfare” — the use of the judicial system to punish political opponents — and then reappeared “without announcing any measures against lawfare”.
Two pro-independence parties in Catalonia, whose votes the PM needs as his coalition does not have a majority in parliament, accused him of “irresponsibility”, “frivolity” and seeking to interfere in a Catalan regional vote on May 12.
Lawmaking has been at a virtual halt for months in Spain except for Sánchez’s push to pass an amnesty bill for Catalan separatists involved in an illegal 2017 bid to break away from Spain — the price he is paying for their parliamentary support. To conservatives and even some Socialists, the amnesty deal was Sánchez’s darkest hour and an unconscionable affront to the rule of law.
Toni Roldán, a former centrist MP now at the Esade business school in Madrid, said Sánchez was making every effort to deepen his role as a polarising figure via a “political strategy of division”.
“The deeper the trench, the less likely it is that anyone with any doubts or nuanced views will decide to switch to the side of the ‘non-democrats’.”
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