Spain’s PM suspends public duties after wife accused of corruption

MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he would step back from public duties “for a few days” to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a business corruption probe into his wife’s private dealings.

Sanchez, who last year secured another term for his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) as leader of a minority coalition government, said he would announce his decision on Monday, April 29.

“I need to pause and think,” he wrote in a letter shared on his X account. “At this point, I have to ask myself: is it all worth it? I honestly don’t know… whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour.”

“I will cancel my public agenda for a few days in order to reflect and decide which path to take.”

The shock announcement came after a Spanish court said it was launching a preliminary investigation into accusations of influence peddling and corruption levelled at Sanchez’s wife Begona Gomez.

The court investigating Gomez did not provide further details as the case is sealed and in early stages, only saying it followed a complaint raised by anti-graft campaign group Manos Limpias – Clean Hands – whose leader has links to the far-right.

Manos Limpias has accused Gomez of receiving favours from airline Air Europa and its Spanish holding company Globalia during her time as director of an African research centre at Madrid’s IE business school until 2022. IE said in a statement that it had never received any financial support from Globalia or its entities.

Sanchez said the seriousness of the attacks against him and his wife merited a measured response. He said his wife has done nothing wrong and would cooperate with the investigation and defend her innocence. Gomez has not commented.

In the letter Sanchez also took aim at opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo of the People’s Party (PP) and Santiago Abascal of the far-right Vox party, saying they had “collaborated” with those circulating the claims against his wife.

Feijoo said Sanchez was seeking to blame opposition parties for the activities of judges. “The prime minister has a judicial problem. He is running away from his responsibilities. What he should have done is give explanations. If you have nothing to fear, why not? If his wife has nothing to fear, she should go to court and make her innocence clear,” he said.

His ministers have backed him, with Yolanda Diaz, the Labour Minister and leader of the government’s left-wing coalition partner Sumar, saying Sanchez had her “full support”.

“The right-wing offensive cannot get its way,” she wrote on X. “We must defend democracy, the progressive bloc and the legitimacy of the coalition government that has improved people’s lives so much.”