Corruption allegations against the Spanish government are dominating the campaign ahead of the EU elections after the wife of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was issued a court summons.
A Madrid judge has summoned Begoña Gómez, who is married to the Socialist leader, to appear in court on July 5th to face questioning as part of an investigation into whether she used her position to influence the awarding of public contracts.
The case was brought by a far-right campaign group, Clean Hands, which alleged that Ms Gómez had played a role in the government’s awarding of a rescue package to Air Europa airline worth €475 million, as well as influencing the granting of government contracts to a consortium by signing letters in its favour. A far-right Catholic organisation, Hazte Oír (Make Yourself Heard) subsequently joined the lawsuit against her.
The judge has proceeded with the investigation, focusing on the contract-related allegations, even though the state prosecutor’s office had called for it to be shelved due to lack of evidence. The Civil Guard police force came to the same conclusion in a 116-page document examining the allegations, which are based entirely on news reports.
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Mr Sánchez has denied any wrongdoing by Ms Gómez or his government. He has repeatedly denounced the claims as a right-wing campaign by opposition parties that refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of his left-wing coalition government. On Tuesday, he posted a defiant open letter to Spaniards, describing the case as “a crude set-up” orchestrated by the “dark arts” of the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox.
“What they did not manage at the ballot box, they want to achieve in a spurious manner,” he wrote.
In April, Mr Sánchez wrote a similar open letter after it emerged that Ms Gómez was facing a preliminary investigation. In it, he announced he was taking five days off public duties to consider his future. After intense speculation that he would resign, he vowed to remain in office.
In this week’s letter, Mr Sánchez described as “strange” the fact that the summons had been announced just days ahead of Sunday’s EU election. He said this broke the unwritten rule that sensitive judicial developments affecting politicians should not be made public immediately before an election.
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Others in the government have also expressed bewilderment at the timing of the announcement. Although Mr Sánchez and his ministers have been careful not to attack directly the judge investigating the case, Juan Carlos Peinado, they have strongly suggested that this is a case of “lawfare”, or the use of the judiciary as a political weapon.
The opposition says that this case and Mr Sánchez’s response to it are proof that the government is corrupt and that it has undemocratic tendencies.
“It’s this attitude of believing he is above everything and everyone else, that thuggish attitude,” said PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has called for Mr Sánchez to resign over the affair. He accused the prime minister of “pure populism, cheap, old-school populism”.
The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, accused the prime minister of “trying to block the work of the judiciary and continuing to point at and pressure judges”.
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Both parties on the right are set to make gains in Sunday’s election. With Mr Sánchez’s Socialists hoping to hold off the conservatives, the Begoña Gómez case has become a rallying point for both left and right.
Félix Bolaños, minister for the prime minister’s office, said he expected left-wing voters to mobilise and “make sure that on June 9th the Socialist Party wins these elections and puts the right, which has waged the dirtiest campaign in history, in its place”.
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