“Resistir es vencer,” or: to resist is to win. This phrase is remembered in connection with Juan Negrín, the last president of the Spanish Second Republic: from his point of view, for Republican soldiers it was better to die fighting the Francoists during the civil war than to surrender defenseless into their hands. To resist, even in the face of an almost certain defeat, still carried the taste of victory.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez should know something about this. Partly because his first book, written before he even reached La Moncloa, is titled Manual de resistencia (Manual of Resistance). Partly because, in recent weeks, the circle around him has begun to tighten.
A circle made up of investigations involving both his family members and members of the formation of which he is the general secretary, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). For now, Sánchez is in the eye of the storm: he is not under investigation and defends the presumption of innocence of those around him.
To resist, and thus to win, as Negrín teaches, for Sánchez today means keeping calm while everything around him moves faster and faster, in increasingly unexpected directions: from Venezuela to China, to almost always return to Ferraz, the headquarters of his party.
But to truly understand what is happening, it is not enough to see what has happened in the last two weeks: one must go back at least three years, in some cases even more.
Investigations into the wife and brother
On April 24, 2024, investigations began into Begoña Gómez, Sánchez’s wife, for alleged crimes of illicit influence trafficking and corruption. Gómez is said to have exploited her position to favor the companies of Carlos Barrabés, an entrepreneur and co-director, together with Gómez, of the Chair of Competitive Social Transformation at the Complutense University of Madrid, in various public tenders.
Furthermore, she allegedly favored the rescue of the airline Air Europa, which in turn signed a contract worth 40,000 euros per year with IE África Center, an entity Gómez directed between 2018 and 2022.
In the autumn of the same year, two more charges were added: unauthorized practice of a profession and embezzlement, both linked to her role at the university: in the first case, she allegedly drafted a series of documents without having the necessary technical qualifications; in the second, she registered software developed by Complutense in her name.
In 2025, the alleged crime of embezzlement was added, also contested against the Presidency consultant Cristina Álvarez: together with Gómez, she is accused of having used public resources (Álvarez’s salary and working hours, paid by La Moncloa) to carry out private activities benefiting Gómez.
In early April, investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado closed the investigation and requested a trial. The public prosecutor asks for acquittal: the prosecution instead demands 24 years in prison. Gómez has been summoned to court for a hearing on June 9.
The complaint that triggered the investigation comes from Manos Limpias, an organization known for its far-right positions (Manos Limpias means “clean hands” and yes, the reference to Tangentopoli is intentional).
Its founder, Miguel Bernard, is a former candidate of Frente Nacional, a neo-Francoist formation.
The Spanish press often describes it as a “pseudo-union”: legally it is a union, but in practice Manos Limpias’ main activity is filing complaints against political figures or people close to them.
Its most common targets are progressive figures or those close to Basque or Catalan independence movements: in the past, in most cases, accusations against them have proven unfounded or inconclusive.
In Spain, citizens and organizations can participate in a criminal trial even without being victims of the crime by constituting themselves as acusación popular. Those who do so can support the prosecution in the trial, request evidence, present conclusions, and urge penalties or convictions.
In Gómez’s case, the acusación popular includes the far-right party Vox, conspiracy theorist content creator and lawyer Aitor Guisasola, the ultra-Catholic and anti-abortion association Hazte Oír, and the “anti-party” Iustitia Europa.
Also in 2024, Manos Limpias denounced David Sánchez, the prime minister’s brother and an official in Badajoz.
In 2017, Sánchez was hired as coordinator of conservative activities in the province: five years later, he assumed the position of director of the performing arts office, a role which, according to the organization, was created ad hoc for him and assigned irregularly.
To date, Sánchez, along with ten other people, is under investigation for abuse of office and illicit influence trafficking: the trial began on May 28.
The long shadow of the “Koldo case”
Following a complaint by a member of the Partido Popular (PP, center-right), in April 2022 the Spanish public prosecutor opened an investigation into the company Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas S.L. for irregular sales of medical supplies during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2023, among the suspects was Koldo García, former collaborator of Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos between 2018 and 2021: a year later he was arrested along with twenty others, including his wife.
The case involves not only the Ministry of Transport but also the Ministries of Health and Interior, as well as the regional governments of the Balearic and Canary Islands, then led by PSOE members.
At the end of 2024, a dossier from the Guardia Civil’s anti-corruption unit attributed a significant role in the affair also to former minister José Luis Ábalos and entrepreneur Víctor de Aldama (then in preventive detention for tax fraud, money laundering, and corruption in fuel distribution and marketing in Spain: the case known as “la trama de los hidrocarburos”).
Not only that: the Guardia Civil hypothesizes that irregularities in mask sales are only the most visible part of a wider network.
In June 2025, Ábalos, Koldo, and the PSOE’s organizational secretary Santos Cerdán were investigated for corruption, criminal association, and illicit influence trafficking.
According to the Guardia Civil, between 2019 and 2023, the three allegedly received about 600,000 euros in bribes from numerous companies in exchange for contracts awarded by the Ministry of Transport.
The scandal has cast a shadow of suspicion over the last ten years of PSOE management and another narrative: the one that brought Sánchez first to lead the socialists and then the government.
As I recounted in the book La Spagna è diversa, published by People, Sánchez resigned in 2016 both as PSOE secretary and as a deputy following a series of internal disputes.
From there began his long march, which led him first to run again as socialist secretary, then to defeat his internal opponents within the party, and finally to replace Rajoy in government.
A six-month journey during which Sánchez, aboard his Peugeot 407, traveled across Spain to regain voters’ trust: a Don Quixote-like endeavor that consolidated his image as an underdog, an eternal substitute who nevertheless does not give up, hitting rock bottom and fighting to rise again.
On that Peugeot 407, with him, were also Ábalos, García, and Cerdán.
The very day the Guardia Civil dossier was made public, Sánchez stated he was unrelated to the facts, apologized to the public, and announced a package of anti-corruption measures.
For the Koldo case (or mask case), Ábalos and García have been in preventive detention since last November and face 12 to 30 years in prison.
Santos Cerdán is on provisional release: besides being investigated with Ábalos and García for the bribe case linked to the Ministry of Transport, he is also under investigation for alleged cash payments he would have received from the party between 2017 and 2025 for about 30,000 euros and for the Leire case.
The Leire case
In May 2025, the newspaper El Confidencial published a series of audio recordings in which socialist activist Leire Díez asks an entrepreneur for compromising information about Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Balas, head of the Guardia Civil unit directing investigations into all the cases we have discussed so far (from the wife’s case to Sánchez’s brother’s, including various branches of the Koldo case).
A month later, Díez left the party but defended herself by saying she needed the information for a journalistic investigation she was working on. The Guardia Civil launched investigations against her for alleged illicit influence trafficking and obstruction of justice. From here, the case branches in two directions:
Díez is accused of managing, since 2024, a series of disinformation and destabilization campaigns against magistrates and Guardia Civil agents (not only Balas) to cover up or discredit judicial cases involving Sánchez’s family members and some PSOE members.
These campaigns would have been orchestrated by the party’s former organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán, who allegedly paid Díez through a series of false invoices, with the complicity of the party’s financial manager, Ana Fuentes.
It is within this investigation that on May 27 the Guardia Civil spent more than 12 hours at the PSOE headquarters in Madrid searching for materials and documents while Sánchez was visiting Pope Leo XIV in Rome.
Díez is also under investigation for abuse of office, embezzlement, criminal association, and illicit influence trafficking in the awarding of public works contracts (worth 132.9 million euros, between 2021 and 2023) along with Vicente Fernández, former president of SEPI (the entity managing state shareholdings), and entrepreneur Antxon Alonso.
The Plus Ultra case and Zapatero
On Tuesday, May 19, the secrecy of the investigation into former socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was lifted; he is accused of illicit influence trafficking, criminal association, and document forgery: it is the first time a former premier has been investigated for corruption in Spain.
Zapatero allegedly illegally received about two million euros of the 53 million that the Spanish government had allocated in 2021 to rescue Plus Ultra, a small airline with few routes, mainly to South America.
At the center of the investigations involving the former prime minister are payments Plus Ultra made to the consulting firm Análisis Relevante SL, founded by Julio Martinez Martinez, an entrepreneur and friend of Zapatero.
In turn, Análisis Relevante SL made payments both to the former prime minister and to What The Fav, the company of Zapatero’s daughters.
In both cases, members of the Zapatero family defended themselves by saying these were sums for services actually rendered (consulting in the first case, marketing in the second).
Zapatero would thus have exploited his position to influence government decisions and favor the airline’s rescue.
Plus Ultra is not the only airline to have received public funds during the pandemic (the same happened to Air Europa, Air Nostrum, and Volotea), and Análisis Relevante SL is not the only company to have received money from Plus Ultra: there is a dense network of companies controlled by Martinez that the judge conducting the investigations considers “ghost companies.”
The former president is also accused of having tried to open a company in Dubai for Martinez to launder the money received from the Plus Ultra bailout.
Zapatero has so far enjoyed an excellent reputation and has become, over time, a point of reference for the Spanish left and a great supporter of Sánchez’s leadership of the party and the country.
The achievements for which he is remembered mainly concern his first term (from 2004 to 2008; the second lasted from 2008 to 2011) and include, among others, the legalization of marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, the approval of the first law on gender violence in Europe, and the law on “historical memory,” the first regulation to compensate victims of the civil war and Francoism.
Investigations into the Plus Ultra rescue were first opened in 2011, then archived the same year.
They were reopened in 2024 following requests for international cooperation from France and Switzerland to investigate an alleged money laundering network linked to Venezuela.
Plus Ultra allegedly used the bailout money to launder capital through various Venezuelan companies.
Venezuela appears again in other parts of the Zapatero case: both What The Fav, the daughters’ company, and Martinez received payments from Inteligencia Prospectiva, a company owned by two Venezuelan brothers.
During the investigations, it emerged that Martinez was in contact with a Venezuelan entrepreneur, Domingo Amaro Chacón, for the purchase and sale of Venezuelan oil: an operation in which Zapatero, a Chinese Communist Party company, and a Swiss agent were involved in various capacities. With this same Venezuelan entrepreneur, Zapatero and Martinez allegedly discussed possible business related to gold export.
Speaking of China: investigators included in the Zapatero dossier three wire transfers the former president received from Chinese companies and a letter sent by China International Cultural Technology Resources Group to Zapatero’s office declaring they were “ready and able to purchase oil and precious minerals” and requesting information on “reliable partners.”
According to sources close to Zapatero, the payments correspond to a series of conferences he gave in China: the letter, however, never received a response.
More generally, over the years Zapatero has played a significant role in negotiations between the Venezuelan government and the opposition. According to EL PAÍS, between 2015 and 2025 he flew to Caracas more than fifty times.
It is worth noting that Zapatero’s presence in the dossier is always indirect: he receives payments and is mentioned in intercepted conversations but does not manage any company nor personally participate in meetings and gatherings.
On his lawyer’s advice, Zapatero has issued only one statement defending his complete innocence: his interrogation is scheduled for June 17 and 18.
And now?
At the press conference held on May 27 in Rome, Sánchez stated that PSOE “will always maintain a position of maximum cooperation with justice,” then expressed his full support for Zapatero, appealing to the presumption of innocence.
He also reiterated the government’s commitment to completing the legislature (which ends in 2027) to continue with its agenda of social and economic measures (some supported by PNRR funds, which will be disbursed until the end of the year) and to avoid political paralysis.
Investigations into Zapatero and the Guardia Civil’s entry into PSOE headquarters in Madrid have provoked reactions throughout the Spanish political landscape.
Initially, the center-right had ruled out a motion of no confidence (even with the support of the far-right Vox, it would not have the numbers to succeed) and focused on loudly demanding early elections. Since late 2025, four regional elections have been held (Extremadura, Aragon, Castile and León, and Andalusia), and the Partido Popular has always obtained the majority of votes.
Now its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has changed strategy and offered the PNV (Basque autonomist party) and Junts (Catalan independence formation), two of the parties that in 2023 signed the government agreement that brought Sánchez back to power, the possibility to participate in a “instrumental” motion of no confidence. That is, a motion that would lead to a PP government (without Vox in coalition) that “would cleanse institutions and call new elections.”
As political journalist Carlos E. Cué explained, it is unlikely they will accept: no party at this moment wants to take responsibility for toppling the Sánchez government and opening the doors, after elections, to the most probable scenario, i.e., a coalition government between the center-right and the far-right.
Dissatisfaction among PSOE’s coalition partner, Sumar, and other parties supporting the executive is noticeable, but they too are biding their time.
For his part, Sánchez has announced he will speak in parliament on June 19, one day after Zapatero’s interrogation ends.
Meanwhile, the Transport Minister presents himself as the government’s unofficial spokesperson, claiming the executive is the victim of an alleged conspiracy aimed at bringing it down using “undemocratic methods.”
Overall, the government is reapplying a successful recipe: waiting for summer and other international events to shift attention away from ongoing investigations to regain support. This happened in 2024 with the opening of investigations into Sánchez’s wife and in 2025 with those on Ábalos, García, and Cerdán (in that case, Sánchez had pushed harder on his positions regarding the genocide in Gaza). This year it will be the Pope’s visit to Spain, from June 6 to 12, and the World Cup, which will last from June 11 to July 19.
As journalist Berna González Harbour pointed out in an editorial, “time passes, crises follow one another, and the explanation that the government is a victim of a plot sounds too much like the excuses of a child who fails because the teacher is against him. (…) But everyone keeps watching the (judicial) game without acting on the political chessboard. They do not realize that this time they are not losing Wimbledon, Roland Garros, or the World Cup, but the trust of the citizens.”
(Excerpt from Notes)
