The PP asks to indict the PSOE for illegal financing at the gates of the electoral campaign

MadridJust twenty-four hours after the announcement of early elections, the PP has activated the judicial route against the PSOE. The Popular Party has registered a filing with the National Court demanding the indictment of the Socialists for the crimes of illegal financing, bribery, influence peddling, money laundering, and embezzlement. They have done so as a popular prosecution in the case being investigated by magistrate Santiago Pedraz regarding the alleged sewers of the PSOE, the so-called Leire Díez case. With this move, the Popular Party sets in motion another branch of its artillery against the Socialists at the gates of the electoral campaign.

While Pedro Sánchez intends to turn it into a referendum on housing, the PP is multiplying fronts –also muddying the waters on social media– to try to dismantle the strategy of the Spanish government president. The Popular Party spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, said that the decrees approved by the Council of Ministers this Tuesday are merely a "performance" by Sánchez. In this sense, beyond the alleged corruption, the Popular Party is trying to focus on other issues they believe can hurt the Socialist leader, such as the crisis in Ceuta and the situation of the domestic economy. In a press conference at the lower house, Muñoz said that "Spaniards are living worse than they were four years ago". "Today it is much more difficult to buy or rent a home, fill the shopping cart or the gas tank, we pay more taxes, we have less security [...]. Spain has a lower quality of life since the arrival of Sánchez", she added.

In parallel, in the Senate, the PP presented the upper house's gold medals this morning to the presidents of Ceuta and Melilla, Juan Jesús Vivas and Juan José Imbroda. Alberto Núñez Feijóo attended the event and will travel to Ceuta this Wednesday in an attempt to focus attention on an affair from which the PP hopes to gain electoral profit. Popular Party sources from the autonomous city confirm that their cause will be one of the main focuses of the state campaign, an affair that mobilizes the right-wing electorate. In fact, the same sources believe that the massive entry of immigrants into Ceuta could become "the most powerful reason for Sánchez to stop being president". "The sovereignty of all of Spain is at stake", they insist.

The criminal narrative against the PSOE

In the document submitted to the National Court, the PP argues that the PSOE set in motion a "criminal organization" allegedly led by former secretary general Santos Cerdán to "protect the interests of the government and the party" in the face of ongoing judicial investigations. The Popular Party advocates for summoning the PSOE as a legal entity, in the capacity of an investigated party, arguing that Cerdán and other socialist officials were responsible and that the party financed these maneuvers. The PP thus fuels the idea that Sánchez may find himself even more cornered judicially, just as Feijóo already stated on Monday when he asserted that the early election was explained by the Spanish president's "fear" that new information would emerge regarding the network of judicial cases affecting him.