Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez on brink as corruption allegations grow

The career of Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is in doubt after tapes emerged of allies discussing prostitutes and kickbacks.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Madrid’s legislature. Picture: AFP

The political fate of Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s Prime Minister, may rest on a dog’s breakfast.

Jose Luis Abalos, the Socialist leader’s former right-hand man, was the subject of a police raid at his home last week.

While officers questioned him, he asked his companion to take his dog for a walk and passed her some “breakfast” for it. An officer, on seeing that she was hiding “something” in her trousers as she left the house, found that the dog’s breakfast was in fact a computer hard drive.

The discovery, and the media revelation that his companion is a 32-year-old former porn actress whose professional name was Letizia Hilton, has fuelled a scandal that involves prostitutes, lies and claims of sleaze at the highest levels of government.

Mr Sanchez now faces allegations of systemic corruption in his inner circle. A police report showed his two successive right-hand men, Mr Abalos, 65, and Santos Cerdan, 56, had allegedly taken kickbacks on multiple state contracts.

The ability of Mr Sanchez’s minority government to remain in power depends on Catalan, Basque and radical left parties that have so far refused to support him, fearing the taint of further corruption allegations, which are widely expected.

The Prime Minister’s isolation was evident in a thunderous parliamentary session on Thursday due to the absence of Yolanda Diaz, the leader of the populist left-wing Sumar platform, his main coalition partner, in protest at the allegations.

As Mr Sanchez unusually slipped up, describing the allegations as “an anecdote” and saying “the Socialist party absolutely tolerates corruption”, Gabriel Rufian, an ally and Catalan separatist, demanded that he “swear” that the Prime Minister’s name would not emerge in the scandal.

For Mr Sanchez’s allies the embarrassment of the scale of the alleged kickbacks has been worsened by audio recordings allegedly showing Mr Abalos and Koldo Garcia, his aide, who is also facing corruption charges, discussing sharing prostitutes whose services and attributes they discuss in detail.

“Ariatna who’s fine, she’s brand new, she’s fine, she’s perfect,” says Mr Garcia in a tape recording. “And the Colombian girl,” replies Mr Abalos. Mr Garcia interjects by saying that he wants her. “I don’t know,” argues Abalos, then the transport minister.

Mr Sanchez said the “audios about women profoundly shame me” but as his government had boasted about its feminist credentials and attempted to ban prostitution, the revelations have been particularly damaging.

So too have the recorded conversations in which Mr Abalos, Mr Cerdan and Mr Garcia discuss counting up, sharing out and arguing over the spoils of their alleged corruption. The sums involved amounted to up to €1m ($1.78m), the report said.

The recordings, made by Mr Garcia, include a moment in which he and Mr Abalos appear to be angry over accusations made by Mr Cerdan that they have been taking more kickbacks than they had declared to him. “I haven’t asked for a penny, I haven’t kept a penny, I’m very happy with what I have, if you want from now on I won’t be the intermediary,” says Mr Garcia.

Mr Cerdan tells him to not talk aloud about the deals and to write down the discussion instead. Other recordings, after Mr Sanchez dismissed Mr Abalos as a minister, show Mr Garcia asking Mr Cerdan for kickbacks allegedly owed to his former boss. “150,000 [euros] to keep his ex-wife off his back”, says Mr Garcia.

Mr Abalos states: “All I know is I don’t have a f..king penny. I’m living on €50 all f..king week.”

Mr Sanchez’s relationship with the trio of suspects, who all deny wrongdoing, is now in the spotlight. The Prime Minister has tried to distance himself from them, calling them a “toxic triangle”. But he came to power largely thanks to Mr Abalos and Mr Cerdan.

A source of unease for him is that he famously went on a car journey round Spain in 2017 with them and Mr Garcia in an attempt to revive his then flagging political career.

After the recordings were made public last week, Mr Sanchez was at first contrite and then went on the attack, accusing the “reactionary” opposition of corruption, and saying that he will stand for elections in 2027. His government maintains that it is the victim of a smear and lawfare campaign conducted by the opposition, judges and media.

In an article published in El Pais, Manuel de la Rocha, his chief economics aide, has called on Mr Sanchez to agree with his allies a confidence vote in an effort to rally voters. But as the damage to the Socialist reputation mounts, the newspaper, a bellwether of the party’s thought, carried columns on Thursday that said Mr Sanchez was “broken” and should resign.

THE TIMES