“Mr. Money is a powerful gentleman,” said the 17th century Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo.
Spain is certainly no stranger to corruption, which has claimed plenty of political careers in recent decades.
The latest in deepening jeopardy is current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who’s led the country for nearly eight years and has become one of the few European leaders to persistently and openly criticize the Trump administration – over Gaza, the Iran war and tariffs.
During Sánchez’ time in office, Spain has become one of Europe’s most dynamic economies, despite the fragility of his ruling coalition, which includes Catalan and Basque separatist parties.
Sánchez and his left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) came to power when a huge corruption scandal engulfed the center-right People’s Party in 2018, leading it to lose a no-confidence motion.
Similar storm-clouds are now gathering around Sánchez, a canny politician known for outwitting his opponents.
On Saturday, a Spanish judge ordered his wife Begoña Gómez to stand trial for corruption, demanded she surrender her passport and banned her from leaving the country. Gómez must also report to court twice a month.
The judge, Juan Carlos Peinado, had previously charged Gómez with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds, alleging she exploited her marriage to advance her career at a Madrid university.
Both Gómez and Sánchez have denied any wrongdoing. Sánchez has frequently complained that the case is politically motivated and an “obscene farce.”
The investigation began in 2024 after an anti-corruption group – Manos Limpias, which translates to “clean hands” –- with ties to the far-right filed a complaint against Gómez, alleging influence-peddling. At the time, Sánchez withdrew from public duties for nearly a week to question whether he should remain in office.
“Today is a dreadful day for those of us who believe in justice,” Justice Minister Félix Bolaños wrote on X in response to the judge’s ruling on Saturday, adding “truth will ultimately prevail.”
Other commentators said the judge’s demands were excessive, given that Gómez has police protection that would prevent her from leaving the country. The judge even suggested her police detail might help her abscond.
The entire investigation “has been marked by disproportionate measures, seeking maximum media attention, and lacking the impartiality and restraint that citizens expect from the justice system,” wrote leading Spanish daily El País in an editorial Sunday.
The case against Gómez is just the latest to embroil Sánchez’ inner circle.
The headquarters of his governing Socialist party has been raided by police, and several close allies have been the target of investigations, including former Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and former right-hand man José Luis Ábalos.
Zapatero is a suspect in a case involving organized crime, influence peddling, and falsification of documents related to a loan to a small airline. He has denied wrongdoing. Sánchez has pledged the government’s “full cooperation with the justice system, full respect for the presumption of innocence of Mr. Zapatero and all my support for (him).”
Ábalos, who spent seven months in jail before his trial in April, is accused of taking kickbacks from the purchase of $60 million-worth of facemasks during the Covid pandemic.
Sánchez’s musician brother, David, is currently on trial in the city of Badajoz, near the Portuguese border, accused of influence peddling in his appointment to a position nine years ago.
Sánchez has not been named in any of the cases, but they have weakened his already fragile minority coalition, and the PSOE has suffered setbacks in several regional elections.
The raid on PSOE headquarters in Madrid last week, which focused on the alleged misuse of party funds, heaped further pressure on him.
Spain’s High Court said a judge ordered the search of party headquarters as part of a probe into “a network allegedly aimed at undermining judicial proceedings affecting the (party) or the government.”
The investigation focuses on whether the funds had been used to pay a journalist to criticize the legal complaints against party figures and allies.
The leader of the main conservative opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said last week that the government was in its “death throes” and demanded that Sánchez resign.
Spain’s next election is due by August next year, but many commentators expect the coalition to collapse before then.
A small Basque party in the coalition has already questioned whether it can survive, even as Sánchez has insisted he will serve his full-term. And the far-left Sumar party has warned that it would not tolerate evidence of illegal use of party funds.
Polls suggest that if an election were held now, Feijóo’s People’s Party (PP) would win and could form a majority with the far-right Vox party.
For Sánchez, the second longest-serving leader among the 27 European Union states, political survival now looks more perilous than ever before. But the Spanish constitution works in his favor, as a prime minister is only ejected when parliament backs an alternative.
Several parties in the fragmented Spanish legislature would not back Feijóo, especially the separatist factions which have had a deeply adversarial relationship with the PP.
Few backed Sánchez for reelection in 2023, but he prevailed with some elaborate coalition-building. His best hope now may be to ride out the storm – and hope verdicts in the pile-up of cases go his way.
