MADRID, Spain\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Thousands of people marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday calling for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to resign over allegations of corruption within his entourage.<\/p>\n
Demonstrators, many waving red and yellow Spanish flags and brandishing signs saying “Enough!”, made their way through the streets of Madrid behind a large banner that read: “Corruption has a price. No more impunity. Resignation and elections now.”<\/p>\n
The protest was called by a group of over 150 civic associations called Sociedad Civil Espanola and backed by the mainstream conservative Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox.<\/p>\n
Organisers put attendance at 120,000.<\/p>\n
The central government’s delegate to the region estimated 40,000 people had turned out for the march, which ended in Plaza Moncloa near Sanchez’s official residence.<\/p>\n
Get the latest news
\n
\n delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n
Sign up for The Manila Times newsletters<\/p>\n
By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the march ended, a small group of demonstrators tried to head towards the residence but were pushed back by riot police, images on Spanish TV showed.<\/p>\n Three people were arrested and seven police officers suffered minor injuries, according to the central government’s delegate.<\/p>\n “There is no-one left in Pedro Sanchez’s circle who has not been accused of very serious crimes. Spain is being held hostage by a corrupt mafia,” far-right Vox leader Santiago Abascal told reporters before the start of the march.<\/p>\n Sanchez, who came to power in 2018 after\u00a0using a vote of no-confidence\u00a0to topple the corruption-mired conservative PP government, has vowed to carry on despite the proliferation of graft allegations concerning his entourage.<\/p>\n His brother, David, is scheduled to stand trial for influence peddling.<\/p>\n His wife, Begona Gomez, is under investigation in a separate corruption case.<\/p>\n Sanchez has dismissed these cases against his family as politically motivated.<\/p>\n His former right-hand man, ex-transport minister Jose Luis Abalos, is awaiting a verdict in his own corruption trial which ended earlier this month.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, a court put former Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a Sanchez ally, under formal investigation for influence peddling and other crimes, adding to the pressure on the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID, Spain\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Thousands of people marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday calling for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[46752,46747,46750,46751,19055,9279,43699,46757,46744,304,46749,46758,11835,6611,46754,46755,46640,46746,46748,46745,46753,46756,41353],"class_list":["post-84768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pedro-sanchez","tag-begona-gomez-investigation","tag-civic-associations","tag-conservative-pp-government","tag-david-sanchez-trial","tag-influence-peddling","tag-jose-luis-abalos","tag-jose-luis-rodriguez-zapatero","tag-madrid-march-attendance","tag-madrid-protest","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-plaza-moncloa","tag-political-corruption-spain","tag-popular-party","tag-pp","tag-riot-police","tag-sanchez-family","tag-santiago-abascal","tag-socialist-prime-minister","tag-sociedad-civil-espanola","tag-spain-corruption","tag-spanish-flags","tag-spanish-tv","tag-vox-party"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116628432041303238","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}