Pedro Sánchez and wife Begoña with Spain’s King and Queen
Credit: EU2023ES flickr
Manos Limpias is a trade union which has a reputation of being politically to the right of centre, dedicated to taking action against those who they deem have acted improperly.
The Secretary General of Manos Limpias (Collective of Public Officials Clean Hands), Miguel Bernard was sentenced to four years imprisonment after being convicted of extortion.
On March 11 of this year, the Supreme Court acquitted Bernard and other associates as there was no proof that their actions were actually unlawful.
Under Spanish law, it is perfectly possible for a party such as this to raise a complaint with the courts and its latest action has really set ‘the cat amongst the pigeons’.
Complaint against the wife of Pedro Sánchez
They have issued a complaint against Begoña Gómez, wife of Spain’s Prime Minister and President of the Spanish Government Pedro Sánchez, with allegations of influence peddling and corruption and a preliminary investigation is underway.
According to the BBC, Manos Limpias put out a statement signed by Mr Bernad acknowledging that its allegations might be false, because they were based on online newspaper stories: “If they are not true, it will be up to those that published them to take responsibility for the falsehood.”
The response from Sánchez is quite surprising as he issued a long statement on X (formerly Twitter) on April 24 in which he supports his wife and blames the opposition PP and Vox for trying to being him down through his wife.
Sánchez considers his position
He then announced that he will take a break from his role by suspending all public duties until he makes a statement on Monday April 29 about his future, although surprisingly none of this was detailed on the Government’s (La Moncloa) website.
It appears that he intends to spend the next few days reviewing his position and deciding whether he should continue as Prime Minister or resign in order to devote time to supporting his wife.
The First Deputy Prime Minister is María Jesús Montero also from the PSOE party of Sánchez and under the constitution, she would be empowered to take over the role of Prime Minister to replace him.
In such a situation however there may be other contenders for the title including former Podemos and Communist Party member Yolanda Diaz who last year formed her own party Movimiento Sumar (Unite Movement) and is currently Second Deputy Prime Minister.
Should he resign?
Clearly, the main opposition, the Partido Popular (PP), as well as Vox will be hoping that Sánchez will decide to resign and that the Catalan parties that form part of his support will consider that the time has come to pull out.
In that way, there would be a possibility for the PP to take over Government or alternatively may call for a new General Election due to the exceptional circumstances.
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