Pedro Sanchez contemplating resignation as his wife faces investigation

The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has canceled his public agenda and is considering whether to resign because his wife, Begona Gomez, was investigated for corruption and influence peddling crimes. The prime minister will communicate his decision next Monday, April 29. The shock announcement came with an open letter to citizens that the prime minister made public a few hours after a Madrid court had opened an investigation against his wife, following the complaint of an organization called Clean hands. According to a center-right news site, El Confidencial, investigators are looking into Gomez’s ties to several private companies that have received government funding or won public contracts.

An investigation is linked to alleged links that Gomez – who holds no public office and keeps a low profile – had with a Spanish tourism group Globalia, which owns Air Europa. Gomez reportedly met twice with Javier Hidalgo, Globalia’s CEO at the time, when the carrier was in talks with the government for a huge bailout following the collapse of air traffic due to the Covid-19 crisis. In particular, Gomez would have met privately with Javier Hidalgo, the CEO of the tourism holding, before the Sanchez government granted the Hidalgo family’s airline, Air Europa, a bailout of 475 million euros. According to El Confidencial, Sanchez participated in the Council of Ministers which authorized the release of the money.

The prime minister regretted the “unprecedented” attack on his wife, questioned whether it was worth continuing and added that he needed to “stop and think” with his wife. “I urgently need to answer the question of whether it is worth it, despite the quagmire into which the right and far right intend to transform politics. Whether to continue leading the government or resign from this high honor.” “I am not naive. I know well that they accuse Begona not because she has done something illegal, because they know very well that she is not, but because she is my wife.”

Born in ’95 as a union of public sector employees, Manos Limpias gained notoriety for a series of complaints on political issues; Leading the organization is Miguel Bernad, a controversial figure for his ties to the far right. A government source told El Pais that “the professional activity of the wife of the head of government is impeccable” and that Manos Limpias’ complaint “is based on hoaxes and false news, and therefore lacks any legal basis and responds to a strategy of the right and the far right”. The controversy comes at a time of strong polarization in Spanish politics in which tensions have increasingly increased after the July elections: despite the narrow result, Sanchez in fact managed to maintain power, but accepted an amnesty agreement in favor of the Catalan independentists in exchange for the votes of the separatist party of Carles Puigdemont.