The Spanish government is calling for an investigation into the leak of Sánchez's messages to Ábalos.

BarcelonaNew installment in the series of the WhatsApp between Spanish President Pedro Sánchez and former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos. The World revealed this Monday the outbursts of the secretary general of the PSOE with the men dissidents of her party, this Tuesday she will be receiving the current Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles. In the conversation, from November 2020, Sánchez and Ábalos comment on an interview with Robles on La Sexta, where the minister responded to some complimentary statements by the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, about her and the work of the army during the pandemic. Robles replied that those good words were for the armed forces, who "did a priceless job." And that's where Sánchez and Ábalos mock the minister: "Above good and evil. National heritage," says Ábalos. "She sleeps in uniform [...]. She's a bird", says Sánchez.

In November 2020, Ábalos was still part of the council of ministers, where both he and Sánchez sat next to Margarita Robles. The former minister would leave almost a year later, for reasons that were never made public, by decision of the Spanish president (who despite what the Spanish president has never made public). 2023). In the conversation published by The World, Sánchez and Ábalos joke about Ayuso's nickname for Robles, "Manuela Malasaña," a Madrid heroine of the May 2nd Revolution against Napoleon's troops. "I'm watching the interview in Malasaña on La Sexta," Ábalos writes to Sánchez.

Robles, in question, made light of the messages and noted that they are "private" conversations from "many years ago." In contrast, the PP views Sánchez's words about the minister as "humiliating." From the Spanish government, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, denounced that "there are no limits to the attacks on Pedro Sánchez" and warned that this "violation of privacy could be criminal behavior." In a press conference following the Cabinet meeting, he assumed that there will be a judicial investigation into the leak of the WhatsApp And, if not, he has announced that the executive will take legal action to clarify the matter. Along these lines, Bolaños declined to assume that the source of the leak was Ábalos himself or the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, which is conducting the investigation into the Koldo case at the National Court.

Iglesias and his "hold my rum and coke"

The World The newspaper also makes public messages between Ábalos and Sánchez regarding former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias. According to the newspaper, which has access to the conversations, the two men's comments reveal the PSOE leader's discomfort with Iglesias's approach during the early years of the coalition government. He criticizes him for leaking announcements that should have been joint (for example, the Spanish government's social shield measures to address the crisis following the pandemic). Sánchez writes to Ábalos: "Talk to those people." "Podemos?" the minister replies. "Of course [...]. These are very sensitive issues," Sánchez adds. When Iglesias counter-programmed a press conference with Ábalos explaining the measures against evictions with a video, the Spanish prime minister erupted. He considered it a gesture of "stupidity" and a lack of a competent team within the vice presidency led by Iglesias.

Sánchez also criticized Iglesias's decision to run for the Madrid Assembly to challenge Díaz Ayuso for the presidency and predicted it wouldn't be his last political adventure. "It's a 'hold my drink' gesture," he said.