Separate the grain from the chaff: the new strategy of Moncloa
MadridPedro Sánchez has made a different intervention. There has been no announcement, he has defended his government's work and has put on his lab coat to analyze the different judicial cases affecting Moncloa itself. The beginning of the intervention was already a declaration of intent: "Let's examine the anatomy of the phenomenon," he said in relation to the judicial and political vortex in Madrid. And he continued: "Behind the accumulation of headlines, leaks and speculations there are three different issues that certain political and media actors are trying to mix and equate to confuse people and create a sense of generalized corruption that does not exist." Moncloa sources conclude: "We have to start differentiating," they say, as the PP and Vox are taking advantage of this to magnify and present the government as an authentic "mafia," in the words of the right. "They mix everything in the same pot as if it were very serious," the same sources conclude.
In other words, Moncloa's new strategy is to separate the wheat from the chaff and to encapsulate bad practices within a small group of people. What's more: Moncloa's narrative even goes as far as presenting the PSOE as a victim of its two former organization secretaries. And for Sánchez, it is enough to have apologized for having chosen them and removed them from his party. This is the classification, therefore, that the Spanish government makes to control the damage:
What is indeed corruption
La Moncloa accepts that there has been corruption in the government and in the PSOE, but it limits it to a group of leaders. José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García – already sentenced –; and Santos Cerdán and Leire Díez. Sánchez has defined it like this: "It is a flagrant and very serious case of corruption perpetrated by very specific individuals who took advantage of their weight in the PSOE and in the government to earn money". In this sense, La Moncloa disclaims responsibility for the plot and distances itself from it, also arguing that they have already created firewalls with these people. They are what they consider rotten apples.
Presumption of innocence
Another category for Sánchez is that of the Zapatero case. The Spanish president maintains the presumption of innocence of the former president and, furthermore, defends the actions of his government, which is under scrutiny for the Plus Ultra bailout. "Nobody can draw conclusions from the Zapatero case and the progressive executive has nothing to hide," he said on the matter. The watchword, therefore, is to stand by Zapatero until it is proven that he has acted wrongly. And it is that, in essence, from the PSOE's circle, despite the indications against Zapatero such as the messages talking about his influence in the bailout and the jewels, they consider that there is also a will for persecution against him. "He began to feel the pressure from the 2023 electoral campaign onwards," say these sources, when Zapatero was key for Sánchez to be able to form the plurinational majority.
The 'lawfare'
The last category of cases affecting the government are those linked to Sánchez. According to Moncloa, these are explicitly political persecution, although they do not dare to say lawfare because until now it has been a concept used only by the independence movement or Podemos. The Spanish president has defined them as follows: "There is a series of coordinated actions that seek to weaken the government through personal attacks, disinformation campaigns and lies." He has referred to the case of Begoña Gómez, who today must hand over her passport to Judge Peinado and for whom the popular prosecution is asking for 24 years in prison, and to David Sánchez, who has already been tried and is risking six years of deprivation of liberty.
These two judicial cases are the ones that most outrage Moncloa, especially also because it is where Alberto Núñez Feijóo has most seized upon in his speech. "It is dirty, hateful... it is harassment," they state about the opposition leader's speech. But Sánchez is determined to resist: he decided so, even though he was warned of the storm that could come, during the five days of reflection he took on April 24, 2024.