From tensions to blockade in parliament: Sánchez puts an end to the legislature

Sánchez, Prime Minister since 2018, was reinvested in office in 2023 after agreements with eight left-wing and right-wing parties, including independents from the Basque Country and Catalonia.

The legislature did not start until it had agreed to bring an amnesty law for Catalan independenceists to parliament, something it said it would not do until the eve of the elections.

Amnesty was approved by parliament (by the same contraption), led hundreds of thousands of people to the street and marked the beginning of a tension with the judiciary, with the Supreme Court denying until today amnesty to former regional president Carles Puigdemont, who continues to live in Belgium to escape justice.

There followed a series of judicial investigations involving people close to Sánchez, suspected of corruption, and who eventually marked the legislature.

In parallel, the management of such different sensitivities proved difficult, with the government having to negotiate the measure with all parties and to see rejected proposals which it considered essential, such as those intended for housing, which eventually precipitated the call for elections today.

The parliamentary blockade even turned the current legislature into the first in the democratic history of Spain, which ends without the government having submitted a single proposal for a state budget to Members.

When it comes to judicial cases, they have repeatedly served as an argument to press ahead with the legislative plans for 2027.

Sánchez always said that both the Government and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), which also leads, are “clean”, and that because of the cases involving the woman, Begoña Gómez, and his brother, David Sánchez, even said that there are judges in Spain who make politics.

These are the main court cases involving family members of Pedro Sánchez and former PSOE leaders:

Brother convicted of prevarication

David Sánchez, Pedro Sánchez’ brother, was convicted this year “administrative prevarication” by a court in Badajoz, who applied the penalty of inhibition of doing public work for nine years.

The brother of the Prime Minister was convicted “as the author of the necessary cooperation of a crime of administrative prevarication”, after being tried, in the first instance, for prevarication and trafficking of influences, having been acquitted of this latest offense.

The question is the suspicion that in 2017 a job was created on purpose for David Sánchez in the administration of the province of Badajoz, led by socialists, at a time when Pedro Sánchez was not yet Prime Minister, but was already ahead of the PSOE.

Pedro Sánchez himself announced a resource of his brother for a higher instance, still without closure.

Woman sued for two crimes

Begoña Gómez, married to Pedro Sánchez, will be tried for trafficking influence and diversion of public funds by a popular jury.

This is the work of Begoña Gómez with a university, which the investigating judge considered to have been favored by “certain public decisions”.

The charge of diversion of public funds is related to an advisor to the Presidency of the Government who, therefore, suffered a salary paid with public money, but, according to the judge, also provided services to Begoña Gómez linked to the professional activity of the woman of the Prime Minister.

Former minister sentenced to 24 years in prison for corruption with masks

Former Transport Minister and former leader of PSOE José Luis Ábalos, who was a “right arm” of Pedro Sánchez in the government and party, was sentenced this year to 24 years and three months in prison for corruption in the purchase of masks during the covid-19 pandemic, when he was still in the executive.

Faced with suspicions of corruption, Ábalos, minister between 2018 and 2021, was expelled from PSOE in 2024.

He was one of the leaders of the PSOE closest to Sánchez, for being part, with Santos Cerdán, of the hard core that accompanied him on the way to the leadership of PSOE (in 2017) and the Government (in 2018).

Suspects of corruption at the PSOE summit

The case of masks has led to another broader process, still ongoing, in which suspicions of corruption are being investigated at the PSOE summit, related to possible commissions in the award of public works.

In addition to Ábalos, this investigation involves a former “number 3” of the PSOE and former deputy Santos Cerdán, who was also part of the core that led Sánchez to the leadership of the party and the government.

“Case Leire Diez” and the alleged attempt to influence and discredit investigations

This judicial investigation has at the center a former PSOE militant, Leire Diez, with suspicions that there was inside the party an operation that would attempt to interfere or disprove police investigations and prosecutors involving relatives of Sánchez and former socialist leaders.

According to the judicial summary of the case, it would be “a structured organization”, around Leire Diez and coordinated by Santos Cerdán, who intended to “systematically destabilize” investigations, including media campaigns and misinformation.

Zapatero indicted for influence trafficking

Former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is indicted for trafficking and influence and money laundering in an open court case to investigate the rescue of the airline Plus Ultra in 2021.

The small-scale Plus Ultra benefited in 2021 from a financial bailout of EUR 53 million, granted in the form of a loan by the Spanish Government of Sánchez, which at the time set up a fund to rescue companies considered strategic that were in difficulty because of the covid-19.

The investigation into Zapatero also involves suspicions of tax fraud and smuggling because jewels valued at EUR 1.3 million were found in a safe during searches in the former Prime Minister's office. The jewels weren't declared heritage.