Podemos slams Sánchez: "He is not legitimized to lead a progressive government."

BarcelonaPodemos is the first of Pedro Sánchez's partners to say enough over the Cerdán case. The purple party is distancing itself from the PSOE and Sumar coalition government and will not participate in the round of contacts that the Spanish president wants to make with the parties that support him to calm them down in the face of the scandal. In a press conference on Monday, Podemos's organizational secretary, Pablo Fernández, stated that Sánchez "does not currently have the legitimacy to lead a progressive government in Spain" and that his party will not contribute to "giving the PSOE a facelift" in the face of the scheme of contract awards in exchange for bribes that allegedly involved García and former organizational secretary Santos Cerdán.

In parallel, Esquerra is asking Sánchez to follow through and "clean up" the scheme, launching an audit of the affected ministries and reforms to prevent the allegedly corrupting companies can participate in future public works bidding processes. However, for now, the Republicans are not considering forcing the end of the Spanish legislature. The argument is that this does not depend "exclusively" on them, but also on Sánchez's other parliamentary partners, who for the moment do not seem to be pursuing that course. In a press conference, ERC spokesperson Isaac Albert stated that they are also not aware that Sánchez is considering presenting a vote of confidence as a way to take the reins of the legislature. He also hinted that contacts took place this weekend between ERC president Oriol Junqueras and Sánchez.

Aside from the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), the Republicans held talks over the weekend with Junts (Junts) and the BNG (Basque Nationalist Party) to analyze the political scenarios that open up from now on. As Albert explained, ERC will continue to push to advance its political agenda, with the one-off financing and the transfer of commuter rail at the top of the list of pending issues. However, the spokesperson wanted to issue a warning regarding the Cerdán case: "It's a serious gap, and for us, everything related to corruption is a red line." "We will make decisions as long as we see our political agenda moving forward, but corruption is an element that makes everything much more complicated," he emphasized. He also recalled that, beyond the parliamentary support they provide, Sánchez's true "partner" is Sumar (Spanish Nationalist Party).

Follow-up meeting

Specifically, Yolanda Díaz's party will assess the state of relations with the Socialists this Monday afternoon. Second Vice President Yolanda Díaz will meet with Sánchez this afternoon, after demanding explanations and "strong" measures to address the scandal. The Comuns (Communist Party) have also met, working on a "battery of anti-corruption measures" to address a scandal that is already affecting Sánchez's "entourage." while suspicions of alleged irregular financing loom over the PSOE.

In Catalonia, the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) has distanced itself from the crisis of the Spanish Socialists and believes it does not affect Salvador Illa's government "in any way." This was stated at a press conference on Monday by the party's second-in-command and spokesperson, Lluïsa Moret. The Catalan Socialists have closed ranks with Sánchez's response to the Cerdán case since the scandal erupted with the UCO report. This Monday, they again echoed the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, who expressed his "full confidence" in the PSOE leader, and the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni. However, the mayor of the Catalan capital has acknowledged the cracks that the Cerdán case could open: "We are putting the work of a government that in Catalonia we experience as a recovery of coexistence at stake," he said at a conference at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid.