Spanish PM denies Socialist graft in rowdy senate hearing

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Thursday testily denied alleged Socialist corruption before a rowdy Senate committee investigating a scandal that has rocked his government, calling the probe “a circus”.

Corruption investigations targeting former Socialist heavyweights and Sánchez’s relatives have embarrassed a leader who took office in 2018 pledging to clean up Spanish politics after the conservative opposition was convicted in its own graft scandal.

The bad-tempered five-hour hearing grilled Sánchez about a complicated affair involving alleged kickbacks in exchange for public contracts for sanitary equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The scandal has ensnared ex-transport minister José Luis Ábalos and former senior Socialist official Santos Cerdán, who were both close allies of Sanchez and helped him rise to power.

Ábalos’s former adviser Koldo Garcia is another key suspect in the case that has seen Cerdán jailed and police enter the Socialist headquarters in Madrid.

The opposition conservative Popular Party (PP), which commands a majority in the Senate, seeks to prove that Sánchez knew about or participated in the murky manoeuvres – accusations he has always denied.

Sánchez told the committee that Socialist party funding was “absolutely clean” and that receiving cash payments – linked by the police investigation to the alleged corruption – was “perfectly legal” for official expenses if they came with receipts.

Asked about his sacking of Ábalos in 2021, Sánchez insisted the reasons were “fundamentally political” and said “being under investigation is not a conviction”.

The prime minister lashed out at the PP for its handling of past corruption scandals, saying the Socialists “acted with absolute firmness” against Ábalos and Cerdán.

‘Witch hunt’

The committee’s conservative president frequently scolded senators and Sánchez for interrupting, dodging the question or digressing in a hearing that laid bare the polarisation of Spanish politics.

Sánchez at various points called the proceedings a “circus”, “witch hunt”, “mudbath”, “inquisitorial” and “a coarse weaponisation” of the Senate.

The PP has relentlessly focused on alleged Socialist corruption in a bid to force early elections, but Sánchez has rebuffed demands to resign and call a vote.

A damning police report this year that implicated Cerdán in the scandal briefly threatened to rip apart the minority Socialist-led coalition with the far-left Sumar party.

In July, Sánchez unveiled anti-corruption measures in a bid to repair ties with Sumar and an array of fringe and regional separatist parties, without which the government cannot pass legislation.

Separate corruption investigations have targeted Sánchez’s wife Begoña Gómez and his younger brother David Sánchez, dogging his government for more than a year.

In another affair embarrassing the government, the Socialist-appointed top prosecutor will go on trial next week, accused of leaking legal secrets against the partner of the Madrid region’s influential PP leader.

(vib)