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S\u00e1nchez claims he was unaware of former transport minister Jos\u00e9 Luis \u00c1balos\u2019 activities. | Credit: Jesus Hellin \/ Europa Press \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s socialist PM is \u201cclinging to a punctured life raft\u201d, said Josep Ramoneda in Ara<\/a> (Barcelona). Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s reputation had already taken a battering from the corruption cases brought against his wife and brother. Now the jailing of his former right-hand man for embezzlement and bribery leaves him more \u201ccompromised\u201d than ever.<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Luis \u00c1balos, who was Spain\u2019s transport minister between 2018 and 2021, was last week handed a 24-year sentence for rigging public contracts for face masks and other medical supplies during the Covid-19 pandemic. His reward for doing so was \u20ac10,000 a month, a flat for his mistress and various other kickbacks. The PM has not himself been implicated in the \u00c1balos case \u2013 or in any of the others for that matter \u2013 but it all leaves a bad smell and there\u2019s growing pressure on him to resign. Yet S\u00e1nchez stubbornly insists he will remain in post until next year\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n The buck stops<\/p>\n S\u00e1nchez\u2019s claim he had no idea what \u00c1balos was up to is downright outrageous, said Neus Tom\u00e0s in El Diario<\/a> (Madrid). \u00c1balos and his aide Koldo Garc\u00eda, who has also been jailed for his role in the scandal, used to sit at the heart of S\u00e1nchez\u2019s Spanish Socialist Workers\u2019 Party (PSOE). So the PM\u2019s excuse that they were just rogue actors won\u2019t wash: he bears responsibility for crimes committed under his watch.<\/p>\n And don\u2019t forget, S\u00e1nchez came to power in 2018 by condemning the then-PM, Mariano Rajoy, for the corruption exposed in the ranks of Rajoy\u2019s People\u2019s Party (PP), and winning a vote of no-confidence against him, said La Raz\u00f3n<\/a> (Madrid). So he clearly has to resign.<\/p>\n The greatest irony is that the man who delivered the most scathing speech ahead of the vote on the conservative People Party\u2019s corrupt ways was \u00c1balos himself, said Bruno Pardo Porto on ABC<\/a> (Madrid). That he has now received the longest jail sentence ever given to a modern Spanish minister shows just what a sham the PSOE\u2019s pledge to clean up Spanish democracy actually has been.<\/p>\n Comeback king<\/p>\n There\u2019s still a slim chance S\u00e1nchez could survive, said Jason Horowitz in The New York Times<\/a>. He has an uncanny ability to outrun scandals \u2013 hence his nickname: \u201cthe greyhound\u201d. And he was offered an unlikely lifeline last month when a judge ordered his wife, Bego\u00f1a G\u00f3mez, to hand in her passport and stand trial for influence-peddling linked to her job at a university in Madrid.<\/p>\n In his 84-page ruling, the judge likened the government to an \u201cabsolutist regime\u201d, opining that the last similar case of such magnitude was in the early 19th century during the reign of Ferdinand VII. This has made it easy for S\u00e1nchez\u2019s supporters to dismiss the trial as a \u201cdeeply flawed hit job by an obsessed judge\u201d. And that it was the right-wing group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) that filed the cases against his wife and his brother David (who allegedly leveraged his connections to land a job in a city council) adds support to that narrative.<\/p>\n S\u00e1nchez is no stranger to epic comebacks, said Irene Lozano in El Pa\u00eds<\/a> (Madrid), so don\u2019t write him off yet. His PSOE rivals removed him as leader in 2016: two years later he had become PM. The fact that he has presided over one of the EU\u2019s faster-growing economies may come to his rescue this time.<\/p>\n Fresh scandal<\/p>\n I\u2019m not so sure, said Guy Hedgecoe on Politico<\/a> (Brussels). His party is already languishing behind the PP in the polls, and there\u2019s another scandal brewing that could well see him off. It involves his mentor and \u201cideological soul mate\u201d, the former socialist PM Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez Zapatero<\/a>, who is accused of influence-peddling in connection with the \u20ac53 million bailout of the airline Plus Ultra. Prosecutors say he received up to \u20ac2 million for pushing the package through.<\/p>\n