Corruption scandals put Spain’s Sánchez under pressure to call snap elections

Socialist politicians from Spain’s cities and regions want embattled Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to hold snap national elections in the face of mounting corruption scandals — even though they know their party is virtually guaranteed to lose.

Publicly, most of the party’s mayors and regional presidents support Sánchez, but a growing number privately fear he’s now a liability and that the Socialists’ graft scandals will doom candidates at the municipal and regional levels as well.

If the prime minister insists on serving out the remaining two years of this term, they argue, angry voters will punish the Socialists at all levels. National, regional and municipal elections are currently scheduled to take place in mid-2027.

“I don’t see how he can turn things around in the next two years,” said a municipal official from the Socialist Party, granted anonymity to speak freely to POLITICO. “If we have to lose our hold on the [national] government, we might as well do it now and use the time before the local and regional elections to show there’s been a clean break with all of this.”

The prime minister has been under fire since Thursday, when a report from the elite Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard national police indicated it had evidence connecting the Socialist Party’s third-highest ranking member, Santos Cerdán, with taking kickbacks for public work contracts.

Cerdán resigned from the party leadership last week and on Monday relinquished his seat in the Spanish parliament.

Sánchez reacted to news of the UCO report last week with a televised address in which he apologized to the Spanish public and vowed to take “decisive” action to tackle the corruption within the political organization he oversees.

The prime minister on Monday purged the party’s top echelon and named a transition team that includes former Environment Minister Cristina Narbona and disinformation czar Borja Cabezón as caretaker directors until a leadership congress is held next month. He has also ordered an external audit of the Socialists’ finances.

But the consensus is that the measures announced by the prime minister to clean up his party are insufficient to address the wider political crisis, or change the mind of Spaniards who now associate the Socialists with corruption. The investigation into Cerdán’s alleged graft is connected to an ongoing UCO probe into Jose Luís Abalos, his predecessor as the party’s secretary general for organization. Both men were personally named to the post by Sánchez, who saw them as close allies.

The municipal Socialist Party official, who was granted anonymity, said Sánchez’s moves to address the crisis were as effective as “throwing a glass of water on a roaring fire … No one thinks these internal fixes are going to change anyone’s mind or make voters think that we’ve solved the problem.”

Antonio Rodríguez Osuna, mayor of the western city of Mérida, one of the few officials to discuss the matter openly, said Sánchez should hold an extraordinary party congress to consult members on its leadership. He also said that if he were the head of the party, he wouldn’t stand for reelection.

“We don’t deserve this,” he said, defending the “hard work of the thousands of mayors, councillors, lawmakers and honorable government workers.”

Sánchez is a canny politician who is famous for coming out on top in dire situations. | Javier Soriano/AFP via Getty Images

The Cadena SER radio network has also reported on serious concerns among Socialists that, if Sánchez remains in power, they could lose control of the mayoralties of cities like León, Palencia and Soria. Voter frustration with the prime minister could also scupper plans to recover the Valencia region, whose president from the center-right People’s Party, Carlos Mazón, has lost popular support due to his government’s botched handling of last fall’s deadly floods.

The El País newspaper has also noted the growing pressure on Sánchez to call early elections, in a story based on the testimony of 20 prominent Socialists. “The problem is that I see it as impossible to hang on for two years in this situation,” a regional leader said.

It’s Sánchez’ party

Sánchez is a canny politician who is famous for coming out on top in dire situations.

After being forced to resign the party leadership a decade ago, he undertook a door-to-door campaign to get reelected to the same post. In 2018 he orchestrated the country’s first-ever successful no-confidence vote to overthrow Mariano Rajoy and become prime minister. And despite losing the national elections held two years ago, he managed to secure the backing of separatist parties to remain in power.

But there are fears this latest crisis is too much for even Sánchez to overcome.

News that Cerdán — one of the PM’s most trusted long-time allies — may have been collecting kickbacks right under his nose appears to have knocked the leader off balance. Sánchez seemed shellshocked during his Thursday address and vanished from public view over the weekend, leaving his official residence in Madrid to sequester himself in a state-owned country estate outside Toledo.

Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University, said both Sánchez and the wider Socialist Party are overwhelmed by a crisis that is “at its very earliest stage,” and which is only set to get worse with the release of fresh evidence that could implicate members of the current government in acts of corruption.

The Socialist Party’s third-highest ranking member, Santos Cerdán, resigned from the party leadership last week and on Monday relinquished his seat in the Spanish parliament. | Eva Ercolanese/EPA-EFE

Facing political death by attrition, Simón said, it was understandable that many lower-ranking Socialists to want the prime minister to relinquish power. But those calls are unlikely to have any effect because Sánchez dominates the party at the national level and has positioned loyal ministers atop its regional structures as well.

At a press conference on Monday, Sánchez acknowledged he had considered resigning, but concluded that his “duty as captain is to take the helm to weather the storm.”

Simón said the prime minister has “a personal interest in wanting to finish the term and has no interest in cutting it short, especially because of acts of corruption to which he isn’t connected,” Simón said.

Moreover, he added, Sánchez knows that if evidence implicating him were to surface, he’d be better placed to dispute it as prime minister than as leader of the opposition.

“The party knows that this could end badly and could tarnish its brand for the next decade,” he said. “But they don’t have the strength to overthrow him, even when he’s injured, even when he’s mortally wounded. Sánchez is the master of his party and if he wants to remain in office, he will.”

Simón added that while the center-right opposition may be demanding the prime minister resign or call snap elections, it is actually delighted that Sánchez is keen to remain in power.

“The People’s Party is in no rush to see him go,” he said. “These scandals are wearing down the Socialists, and the longer this goes on, the more the parties that support the government end up being tainted in the eyes of the voters.”

That view was confirmed by the People’s Party itself.

“A no-confidence vote would be a breath of fresh air” for the prime minister, said People’s Party spokesperson Borja Sémper.

“He’s chosen a slow, agonizing demise,” he added. “One that will be all the more painful in the end.”