Sánchez dismisses Paco Salazar's former right-hand man as advisor to the Moncloa Palace

BarcelonaA twist in the case of Paco Salazar, the former Socialist leader who was internally denounced by female employees at the Moncloa Palace for alleged sexual harassment. For five months, the Socialist Party headquarters in Ferraz had kept the investigations into the complaints on hold, until this week. Eldiario.es The PSOE made its contents public. This has spurred the PSOE to reactivate the investigations in the face of internal criticism, but also from the PP, which has seen this case as a new target to attack the Spanish government. President Pedro Sánchez personally acknowledged the "mistakes" made in this case on Saturday, and is now going a step further: he will dismiss Salazar's former right-hand man, Antonio Hernández, currently the director of the Political Coordination department in the Prime Minister's office, according to reports. Eldiario.es And sources at Moncloa confirm to ARA.

The decision will take effect at Tuesday's cabinet meeting, a move by which Sánchez removes from Moncloa a leader accused by the victims of allegedly protecting (and justifying) Salazar when he was an advisor to the Spanish government. In an informal conversation with journalists on Constitution Day, Sánchez expressed the PSOE's support for the victims and offered to accompany them if they decide to take the case to the public prosecutor's office. However, he ruled out the possibility of the party headquarters (Ferraz) filing the complaint, as requested by former Socialist leader Adriana Lastra, one of the first to point out sexist behavior within Sánchez's inner circle in recent years – starting with Santos Cerdán and continuing with former minister José Luis Ábalos. Sánchez, the PSOE's general secretary, attributed the delay in processing the cases to a lack of staff in the party's anti-harassment office.

Montero also dismisses him from the PSOE-A

Antonio Hernández will also leave the executive committee of the Andalusian PSOE by decision of its leader, First Vice President María Jesús Montero. The Finance Minister had been accused of being close to Salazar, who He was a candidate to fill the position of organizational secretary, replacing Santos Cerdán. until the accusations against him erupted.

Also on Saturday, Montero admitted that the party had handled this whole episode "very badly," at a time when the PSOE was already facing a reputational crisis among female voters due to the Ábalos case, with the derogatory statements made about women by the former minister and his former advisor, Koldo García.

The matter also puts the Minister of Education and spokesperson for the Spanish government, Pilar Alegría, in a bad position: a few weeks ago she had lunch with Salazar, and a photograph was circulated. At the time, the minister framed the meeting within the context of their personal relationship. This week she described Salazar's alleged behavior as "disgusting." Neither Montero nor Alegría are scheduled to attend the next question time session in Congress, something the PP (People's Party) took advantage of this Sunday to announce that it will present a reform so that no minister can skip it without a justified reason. In any case, the publication of the conduct attributed to Salazar in internal complaints, such as sexist comments and degrading treatment of women, has generated a wave of indignation among the PSOE's (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) equality officers. In a meeting this week, Ferraz (the PSOE headquarters) tried to calm them and, to quell the criticism among party members, also sent its members a statement apologizing for not having accompanied the complainants. The current organizational secretary, Rebeca Torró, is also under scrutiny for her handling of the complaints against Salazar, who has resigned from the party.