Pedro Sanchez has decided to stay on as Spain’s Socialist prime minister, despite announcing last week that he was considering resigning. Sanchez suspended his official duties for a few days to make the decision, following the launch of a judicial investigation into his wife, Begoña Gomez, for corruption and influence-peddling. (Sanchez has said the allegations are ‘as scandalous in appearance as they are non-existent.’)
Accusations of corruption against political opponents and their relatives (the more, the better) has become a standard method of warfare in the Spanish political arena
The case against Gomez was brought to a judge by an anti-corruption organisation called Manos Limpias (‘Clean Hands’), which Sanchez has accused of leading a right-wing campaign designed to smear his partner and destroy his leftist coalition. But if the parties on the Spanish right, made up of the Conservative Popular party (PP) and Vox, want to do that, they have already missed several opportunities, over matters far more serious than the Gomez affair.
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