The loneliness of Pedro Sánchez
The passing of the days following the outbreak of the Cerdán case has shown that Pedro Sánchez's associates, with the possible exception of Podemos, have no interest in bringing him down, but neither do they want to be tainted by a corruption scandal that historically harks back to those that occurred during the end of Felipe's administration. Thus, this Wednesday, Yolanda Díaz did not appear in Congress to support Sánchez in his confrontation with the right (a gesture also echoed by some Sumar ministers), Gabriel Rufián refused to take a photo with him after their meeting at the Moncloa Palace (and after a bitter exchange in the House of Representatives and the PNV), they sought to distance themselves. Sánchez, therefore, this Wednesday revealed a bitter isolation that jeopardizes the future of the legislature.
The attitude of his associates is understandable considering that more details, some lurid, about the Civil Guard investigations are emerging every day. Investigators found a deed in which a businessman transferred 45% of the ownership of the company Servinabar to Cerdán, a key company in the plot because it was the one that obtained contracts by forming a joint venture with Acciona. The objective of the UCO is to discover where the money allegedly collected in commissions has gone, so they have asked the judge to have access to their bank accounts.
Other episodes that have come to light during the searches are downright degrading and worthy of a stale movie from the era of the uncovering. It turns out that José Luis Ábalos asked the officers to allow his companion to go out for a walk and take the dog. Before leaving, a Civil Guard member searched the woman and found she was carrying a hidden blue external hard drive, which ended up in the evidence bag despite Ábalos's attempt to evade the Civil Guard.
All of this represents a severe blow to the founding narrative of Pedro Sánchez's governments, which, we recall, came to power in 2018 through a motion of censure with the aim of cleaning up the mess after the ruling condemning the Popular Party in the Gürtel case. The machismo denoted by the audio recordings, which openly discuss hiring prostitution services, also taints another of Sánchez's greatest banners: feminism. For now, the Spanish president's strategy is to buy time with a dual objective: on the one hand, to try to narrow the scope of the case; on the other, to draw up an action plan to overcome the crisis.
All of this, however, could be undone if any evidence of illegal financing of the PSOE emerges. Then the party members will abandon Sánchez completely, and the legislature will be forced to come to an abrupt end. The PSOE, however, maintains that the case affects only the three involved and maintains that, unlike the PP, they acted swiftly by expelling them. However, there will be more to this crisis than resorting to the classic "and you too" argument.
