Pedro Sánchez approaches journalists on the plane that takes him to India on an official trip with a face of circumstances after a very difficult week for the Governmentin which the scandal of Íñigo Errejón’s resignation due to accusations of sexist violence has been a very hard blow for the coalition. Sánchez defends Yolanda Díaz and Sumar at all times, although he admits the blow it is for them. “It is a very unpleasant moment, but we have acted. This case is very painful for a feminist Government, but the key is how it acts. As soon as the situation became known, Yolanda acted quickly and forcefully,” he defended. The president admits that he found out from the press about Errejón’s resignation, Díaz did not notify him, but he clearly supports the actions of the second vice president.
When journalists present the scenario of obvious weakness of the Government and especially of Sumar, his coalition partner, Sánchez, in a different tone than on other occasions, accusing the blow of a hellish week, insists that the legislature is going to be very long and, therefore, no conclusions can be drawn now, at the height of the scandal. “There are two and a half years of the legislature left. We’ll see how the games get to 2027″, he assures.
Sánchez avoids criticizing Díaz, even when asked if it was a mistake to appoint Errejón as spokesperson, but he leaves the door open to a recomposition of the left. “Unlike the right, which has now broken into two, and we will see if it becomes three, on the left of the PSOE there has always been this space. First it was IU, then Podemos, now Sumar and we will see in 2027 how it is articulated”he pointed out, leaving the door open to a reorganization of the space that some sectors are already trying.
To the commotion over Errejón case This Sunday, the opposition’s attacks were added to a photograph of the president in which he poses with Víctor de Aldama, the leader of the alleged corrupt plot, after a rally in Madrid in 2019. The image, published by The Worldis taken by Koldo García, the former advisor of José Luis Ábalos. To address the issue, Sánchez broke the ice with a joke: “How are you? Don’t take a photo with me! Immediately, in an informal conversation, he minimized the importance of that image, which for the opposition is very serious.
The president remembers that politicians take dozens of photos a day with everyone who approaches them and asks for it and that does not imply any level of closeness. “I take a thousand photos. You don’t choose who you take a photo with, but you do choose who you go on vacation with. I have never met with this man, neither formally nor informally, I have never spoken with him, we have never exchanged a word, we have never sat down,” said the president, with the intention of remembering that the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has photos with the drug trafficker Marcial Dorado on vacations that both took together on several occasionseven with trips to Andorra.
Sánchez insists on several occasions that he never had any relationship with Aldama, and also assures that the rescue of Air Europa, which for the opposition is under suspicion due to the plot’s interest in facilitating it, was carried out impeccably and has suffered. all kinds of controls, also judicial, because Ryanair denounced all the bailouts of European airlines, and the Court of Justice of the EU said that the only ones that were impeccable were those of Alitalia and Air Europa. “The rescue is loans with conditions that will be returned. If we had not done so, we would have been the only country that did not bail out its airlines after the pandemic. The Government did things in an impeccable manner,” the president insisted.
The head of the Government also defends his actions in the Delcy Rodríguez case, This is the trip of the former vice president of Venezuela and key person of the Government of Nicolás Maduro to Madrid in January 2020. The investigation has found a WhatsApp from Sánchez to José Luis Ábalos in which he indirectly seems to authorize her to come for a four-day visit, which finally became only on a technical scale of a few hours. The president assures that at that time he did not know that she had sanctions that prevented her from entering the EU, and as soon as he found out he stopped it. “The moment we know it, we stop it. “When I find out that this woman cannot set foot on Spanish soil, that is when I tell the minister that we cannot accept it, that we have to cancel it.”
The president claims that the important thing is not that there may be a case of corruption, but how one reacts to it. “Either you protect yourself or you act,” he has stated on several occasions, to try to differentiate his response from that of the PP. “This is an important political change, there was no action before. The PP, which has 30 open cases, left due to corruption. We have made it clear that there is no impunity, while the PP is in a suicidal defense of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. They already fired Casado when he denounced corruption. In fact, we have acted even putting the parliamentary majority at risk,” he explained, thus recalling that the vote of Ábalos, who has left the Mixed Group, is decisive for the majority and even so they have acted harshly against him. “We have done what we could do,” he said. And if there is information that implicates other people, Sánchez has also insisted that he will be relentless. “With the actions we have taken, we have made it clear that there will be no room for impunity. If there were more derivatives, action would be taken,” he defended. The leader of the PSOE thus leaves the door open to more political consequences if the investigation involves more people, but insists that he is completely unrelated to the entire plot.
The president is aware of the delicate situation that the Government is experiencing after a disastrous autumn, in which they have united the Ábalos case and the Errejón case, very different from each other but with great political wear. But he insists that they are acting, both in the PSOE and in Sumar, forcefully and quickly to tackle the problems and above all he reaffirms that the legislature will be long and, therefore, it is not advisable to make hasty analyzes of the political consequences of everything that is happening.
Regarding his continuity in La Moncloa, the leader of the PSOE has explained that Spanish politics is experiencing a moment of “definition”, in which “all political operators”, including Junts or Podemos, have to decide if they want to support the Budgets and open the legislature or overthrow them and complicate it. In neither case does it contemplate a scenario of early elections, according to the president, who is the only one who can make that decision if there is no motion of censure that seems unviable.
Now, he explained, what there is discreetly is a lot of negotiation to finalize those Accounts and with them send a message of stability. Sánchez is confident that there will be Budgets and Podemos will prefer progressive accounts to an extension, but everything is open, also with Junts and the other partners. How the Government emerges from what may be its worst political moment depends on these decisions. But Sánchez insists: whatever happens, there is no electoral scenario in sight.
