Who is Paco Salazar? The candidate to be the interlocutor with Juntos, removed from the PSOE
A senior Moncloa official resigns after allegations of "inappropriate behavior" toward female workers were published.
Madrid / BarcelonaThe federal committee of the PSOE that was to ratify the changes proposed by Pedro Sánchez Following the Cerdán case, the socialist leader has been marked by another fire. Information published in eldiario.es In which a worker on his team at the Moncloa Palace denounced "inappropriate behavior" by one of the people who was supposed to be part of the party's new organizational department, Paco Salazar, and the testimony of a person close to another woman, has cast a shadow over the Socialist conclave. The testimony of the Moncloa Palace worker, who has not revealed her identity, speaks of comments about her body and proposals to stay after hours in an act she considers "sexual harassment and abuse of power." He has been provisionally removed from the Socialist executive and from the Moncloa Palace, where he served as Secretary General of Institutional Coordination. A person of Sánchez's utmost confidence, he was one of the possible candidates to be the new interlocutor with Junts following Cerdán's departure.
Sources familiar with the talks between the PSOE and Carles Puigdemont's party explain to ARA that one of the only conditions the pro-independence parties put forward was that it be a person of Sánchez's utmost confidence, with a direct line to the Council of Ministers, so that whatever was agreed upon in the Spanish language after the Swiss government's struggle would not involve immigration matters. Another condition was that it not be from the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). With this approach, beyond the role played by former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the PSOE had put Salazar's name on the table, an option now ruled out. The Moncloa has not confirmed the proposal and assumes that the person appointed will be the party's new organizational secretary, Rebeca Torró, Cerdán's successor in the organizational position.
Salazar arrived at the Moncloa Palace with Sánchez in June 2018. At that time, he was appointed Director of Analysis and Studies for the Office of the President of the Spanish Government when Iván Redondo served as Chief of Staff. He was one of those affected by the reshuffle of the executive in 2021, precisely when former Minister José Luis Ábalos left, but he returned to the Moncloa Palace a year later as Secretary General of Political Planning. Later, withDiego Rubio's arrival at the Presidential Cabinet He became Secretary General of Institutional Coordination, also tasked with keeping the Moncloa Palace and the PSOE well connected. Behind the scenes, in the engine room, and despite being one of Sánchez's main collaborators since he won the PSOE primaries against Susana Díaz, he is not a familiar face to the general public. He was Secretary of Electoral Action in the Socialist executive.
"The General Secretariat of the Presidency has launched the established mechanisms to clarify the facts revealed this morning and determine whether it is appropriate to activate the protocol for action against sexual and gender-based harassment, as established by the General State Administration," stated sources from the Moncloa Palace, who also added that so far. "The federal executive committee will initiate proceedings immediately, although the PSOE has not recorded any complaints in this regard through any of the authorized channels," stated sources from the PSOE.
Thus, Salazar's departure from the Socialist executive means that, for the moment, the new, reinforced organizational area envisioned by Pedro Sánchez will be reduced to three people instead of four. Rebeca Torró will be the secretary, and the deputies will be Anabel Mateos and Borja Cabezón, who were initially scheduled to be two of the three deputies with Salazar. Torró will assume the electoral action functions that Salazar was supposed to perform.
