Madrid, Spain – Spain is waiting with bated breath to see whether Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will resign over a corruption scandal involving his wife.
The nation was stunned when Sanchez announced Wednesday that he would step away from public life for five days while he considered whether he would continue to lead the government.
“I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worth… leading the government or giving up this honor,” he wrote in a letter shared on his X account.
Sanchez will announce his decision on Monday.
He could either resign, remain in office or request a vote of confidence in parliament.
“Why should Sanchez resign over this? The courts should decide whether he did something wrong, not the media,” Begona Tamarit, 52, a marketing manager from Madrid, told Al Jazeera.
“Who would replace Sanchez in this country? He’s the only adult in the room in a country full of very mediocre politicians.”
However, Sergio Garcia, 39, a bartender in Barcelona, said Sanchez should leave.
“He is the prime minister and should be a role model. He has to resign. In this country no one is above the law, least of all the Prime Minister,” he said.
While people in Spain struggle to understand Sanchez’s surprise move, some commentators said it could be a clever way to gain the upper hand over conservative opposition parties or the far right and their media allies.
But other analysts suggested that Sanchez may be exhausted not only by the allegations against his wife, Begona Gomez, but also by the pressure of leading a left-wing minority coalition that has failed to pass this year’s budget and is struggling to pass legislation adopt because it is dependent on a patchwork of small parties.
The crisis began when a Madrid court announced on Wednesday that it would open a preliminary investigation into allegations of influence peddling and corruption against Gomez, who has not commented.
Gomez, 49, a marketing graduate, has been married to Sanchez since 2006 and works in science and marketing.
She stays out of the spotlight but has supported her husband throughout his political career.
“We are a team, and as a team we are rowing in the same direction,” she said during a television interview in 2016.
The allegations against them were made by Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), which describes itself as a union but primarily conducts legal cases related to right-wing causes.
In particular, it was involved in a 2017 episode that led to the conviction of King Felipe VI’s former brother-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, for corruption.
In the case against Gomez, Manos Limpias conducted a “popular prosecution,” a peculiarity of Spanish law that allows companies to participate in certain criminal proceedings even if they are not directly linked to the defendant.
El Confidencial, a respected online news site, reported that investigators were looking into Gomez’s ties to several private companies that received government funding or were awarded public contracts.
The website reported that the investigation was looking into links between Gomez, who holds no public office and keeps a low profile, and Spanish tourism group Globalia, which owns Spanish airline Air Europa.
Gomez reportedly met Globalia CEO Javier Hidalgo as the airline negotiated with the government to secure a bailout in the wake of the pandemic.
On Thursday, prosecutors asked the Madrid court to dismiss the allegations against Gomez, but gave no reasons for doing so.
The judge can either pursue the case or dismiss it.
“Very untypical behavior”
The Spanish leader accused Manos Limpias and right-wing parties of launching a smear campaign against him and his wife, who he insisted was innocent.
“This attack is unprecedented, it is so serious and gross that I have to stop and think about it with my wife,” he wrote in a four-page letter published on X.
“Most of the time we forget that politicians are people. And I don’t blush when I say it, but I am a man deeply in love with my wife who lives with the feeling of powerlessness while mud is thrown at her.
“In summary, this is an operation designed to harass me by land, sea and air and to force me to abandon politics through a personal attack on my wife.”
Astrid Barrio Lopez, a political scientist at the University of Valencia, doesn’t think Sanchez will give up.
“This is very uncharacteristic behavior and irresponsible because we are left without a leader for days. “This is not good for the stability of the country,” she told Al Jazeera. “Sanchez’s letter seems like he is resigning, but for a politician like him to resign seems very strange. I think he wants to strengthen his position.”
She added: “We know he is a very pragmatic person and will use this position to his own advantage. I think he wants to win the narrative against the forces on the right and portray himself as a victim.”
Sanchez, nicknamed “El Guapo” (the Handsome) because of his looks, is known for his shrewd political moves that keep his opponents on their toes.
Last May he called early elections after the Socialists performed poorly in local elections.
In 2018, he came to power in the first successful confidence vote since the return of democracy and fired conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after a series of corruption scandals.
Sanchez published a book about the experience called “Manual of Resistance,” in which he wrote, “It may sound pretentious, but I realize that I grow in difficult situations.”
The crisis comes ahead of important regional elections in Catalonia on May 12 and European Parliament elections in June. A poll released Thursday by the Center for Sociological Research suggested his Socialists would win the most votes in Catalonia and potentially end the rule of separatist parties.
As socialist leaders rallied to support Sánchez, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the opposition People’s Party, said the prime minister “cannot send a teenager into a tantrum so that people beg him not to go and not to get upset.”
Alfonso Lopez Sanchez, a political commentator with lobby group RetiEspana, said Sanchez’s decision could be due to exhaustion with the country’s troubled politics.
“Nobody knows at the moment what Sanchez wants to do. “He did not consult the Socialist Party or the King of Spain before making this announcement,” he said in an interview with Al Jazeera.
“Perhaps there is a certain tiredness, or he has had enough of what happened to his wife, which drove him to make this unprecedented decision in a Western democracy.”
Lopez said he believes Sanchez could be frustrated as he leads a minority coalition government made up of the Socialists and the far-left Sumar party that has failed to pass a budget.
The Socialist government also faced intense criticism for passing a controversial amnesty law for Catalan separatists charged over the failed 2017 independence bid in return for their support to prop up his government.