Wife of Spanish PM forbidden to leave country as corruption probes pile up

“Mr. Money is a strong gentleman,” said 17th-century Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo.

Spain is certainly no stranger to corruption, which has claimed many political careers in recent years.

The latest in deepening danger is current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has led the country for nearly eight years and has become one of the few European leaders to voice this situation persistently and openly. criticize Trump administration – On Gaza, the Iran war and tariffs.

During Sánchez’s time in office, Spain became one of the most dynamic economies in Europe, despite the fragility of the ruling coalition that includes Catalan and Basque separatist parties.

Sánchez and his left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) came to power in 2018 after a major corruption scandal engulfed the center-right People’s Party, causing the party to lose a no-confidence motion.

Similar storm clouds are now gathering around Sánchez, a wily politician known for outmaneuvering his opponents.

A Spanish judge on Saturday ordered his wife Begoña Gómez to stand trial on corruption charges, demanded she surrender her passport and banned her from leaving the country. Gómez is also required to appear in court twice a month.

Judge Juan Carlos Peinado had previously charged Gómez with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds, and claimed Gómez exploited his marriage to further his career at a university in Madrid.

Both Gómez and Sánchez have denied any wrongdoing. Sánchez frequently complained that the trial was politically motivated and a “bawdy farce”.

The investigation began in 2024 after an anti-corruption group with ties to the far right – Manos Limpias, meaning “clean hands” – filed a complaint against Gómez, alleging influence peddling. At the time, Sánchez withdrew from public duties for almost a week, questioning whether he would remain in office.

“Today is a terrible day for those who believe in justice,” Justice Minister Félix Bolaños wrote. X In response to the judge’s ruling on Saturday, he added that “the truth will prevail in the end.”

Other commentators said the judge’s demands were excessive because Gómez had police protection that would prevent him from leaving the country. The judge even suggested that the police force might have helped him escape.

The entire investigation “was marked by disproportionate measures that sought to attract maximum media attention and lacked the impartiality and restraint that citizens expect from the justice system,” leading Spanish newspaper El País wrote in an editorial on Sunday.

The lawsuit filed against Gómez is the latest to entangle Sánchez’s inner circle.

The headquarters of the ruling Socialist party were raided by police, and several of his close allies, including former Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his former right-hand man José Luis Ábalos, became targets of investigations.

Zapatero is a suspect in a case involving organized crime, influence peddling and forgery of documents related to a loan to a small airline. He denied wrongdoing. Sánchez promised the government’s “full cooperation with the justice system, full respect for Mr. Zapatero’s presumption of innocence and my full support for him.”

Ábalos, who spent seven months in prison before his trial in April, is accused of taking kickbacks from the purchase of face masks worth $60 million during the Covid pandemic.

Sánchez’s musician brother, David, is currently on trial in the city of Badajoz, near the Portuguese border, accused of influence peddling during his appointment to a position nine years ago.

Sánchez was not named in any of the cases, but this weakened his already fragile minority coalition and the PSOE suffered defeat in several regional elections.

The raid on PSOE headquarters in Madrid last week focused on the allegations. abuse The increase in party funds put more pressure on him.

Spain’s Supreme Court said a judge had ordered a search of the party’s headquarters as part of an investigation into “an alleged network aimed at undermining judicial proceedings affecting (the party) or the government”.

The investigation is focusing on whether the funds in question were used to pay a journalist who criticized legal complaints against party leaders and their allies.

The leader of the main conservative opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said last week that the government was in its “death throes” and demanded Sánchez’s resignation.

The next election in Spain is scheduled for August next year, but many commentators expect the coalition to collapse before then.

There is already a small Basque party in the coalition questioned Whether Sánchez will survive, despite insisting he will serve his full term. And the far-left Sumar party has warned that evidence of illegal use of party funds will not be tolerated.

Polls show that if the election were held now, Feijóo’s People’s Party (PP) would win and could form a majority with the far-right Vox party.

For Sánchez, the second-longest-serving leader among the 27 European Union countries, political survival now looks more precarious than ever. But the Spanish constitution works in his favor; because a prime minister can only be dismissed if parliament supports an alternative.

Some parties in the fractured Spanish parliament will not support Feijóo, especially separatist groups that have a deeply hostile relationship with the PP.

Few supported Sánchez’s re-election in 2023, but he prevailed with elaborate coalition building. His best hope now may be to weather the storm, and he hopes the decisions on the backlog of cases go his way.

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