“There should be elections this year”: Felipe González joins the calls for Pedro Sánchez to advance the elections

The investigation of the former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, identified as an alleged key piece of a criminal plot in which he would have exercised influence peddling to divert state funds received by the Spanish airline Plus Ultra, destabilizes the coalition government Sánchez’s progressive.

He Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), one of the six political forces with which the leader of the PSOE threaded his last investiture as president, demands the electoral advance that Pedro Sánchez refuses.

“All the judicial scandals that are surrounding the Spanish government “They are absolutely harmful to politics and government stability,” said Aitor Esteban, leader of the PNV, at an event this weekend.

“Not everything goes here,” he stressed.

“A very serious panorama that makes it very difficult for Sánchez to complete the legislature,” said Esteban. It would be irresponsible to continue without direction beyond 2026without budgets, without a stable majority and with an uncontrolled and judicialized agenda.”

This Monday the opinion of the former socialist president was added Felipe González.

“There should be elections this year,” he said in a meeting with Valencian businessmen when they asked him about how the investigation into Rodríguez Zapatero affected Spain.

Last week, during the government control session, Sánchez supported former President Rodríguez Zapatero before Congress and dispelled doubts about a possible advancement of the elections that, according to the calendar, should be held next year.

“All the collaboration with Justice, all the respect for the presumption of innocence and all my support for (former) President Zapatero,” Sánchez said.

And he clarified: “There will be elections in 2027 and, if the Spanish want, we will continue here for four more years to continue moving Spain forward.”

Another of the parties that supports Pedro Sánchez in the government is Canarian Coalition.

His representative in Parliament, deputy Cristina Valido, pointed out this Monday that the president could undergo a question of trust, a power that only Sánchez could appeal to of his own free will.

“I don’t expect him to do it but I think that at some point it was justified (the question of trust) is this one”, Valido said.

“The president has to demonstrate that he has the capacity to govern and that has the necessary support -he pointed out-. If you don’t have them, you have to call elections.”

“Let’s see how the investigation continues. The only thing I can say is that “As a country it affects us,” stressed former president González.

Regarding the suspicions surrounding Rodríguez Zapatero about influence peddling, document falsification and criminal organization to launder money, González added: “I don’t see it, and some will receive this badly, I don’t see it with ability to set up financial engineering like the one I’m seeing.”

“That he allows himself to be dragged by (former Venezuelan president Nicolás) Maduro and by Delcy (Rodríguez, currently in charge of the presidency of Venezuela), who calls him ‘Little Prince’ (as seen in a greeting between Delcy and Rodríguez Zapatero in a video that circulated in Spain this weekend), is thatI strongly disagree with him politically.“said former President González.

“I do not agree with the Zapatero who came to serve Pedro Sánchez – he insisted -. He has been his man, his architect, in the negotiations (for the amnesty for the independentists) with (former Catalan president Carles) Puigdemont.”

“Having said all that, the presumption of innocence for Zapatero and his right to defend himself seems absolutely indisputable to me,” he added.

And he left a suggestion for the Popular Party (PP), the main opposition force: “If I were from the PP at this moment, I wouldn’t make a motion of censure now“said Felipe González

“Mr. Sánchez’s partners They are guilty by omission“said this Monday the PP spokesperson, Borja Sémper, about the parties that support the president.

“Every week that passes that they continue to support the government, they become more stained with corruption,” he noted.

Sémper picked up the gauntlet of the statements of the leader of the Basque Nationalist Party this weekend: “If the PNV truly believes that prolonging this situation is irresponsible, it has to assume that continuing to maintain this situation is also irresponsible. Words alone are not worth it.”

“We are going to do everything in our power to get Spain out of this hole of corruption and inaction,” stressed the PP spokesperson and avoided confirming or denying that his party is presenting a motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez to remove him from the government.

They don’t give the PP the accountsfor now. He would need half plus one of the 350 deputies that make up Congress, but he only has the “yes” of his own and Vox. It is missing four supports.

After a weekend in which a demonstration – estimated at 120 thousand people, according to the organizers, and 40 thousand for the government delegation- tried to reach the Moncloa Palace to demand the resignation of Pedro Sánchez, a judicial process begins this week that also affects the head of the government.

On Thursday, May 28, at the National Court of Badajoz The trial of his brother will begin, David, Sánchez, and the former president of the Badajoz Provincial Council, Miguel Angel Gallardo, for hiring him as coordinator of the activities of the Provincial Council’s music conservatories.

Along with nine other investigators, David Sánchez and Gallardo are accused of alleged influence peddling and administrative prevarication, a crime of abuse of power in which the law is manipulated to benefit someone.

However, not all of this Monday’s news is bad for Pedro Sánchez: a report from the Civil Guard noted that the chair that the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez, co-directed at the Complutense University of Madrid It was created “following the regulations.” The wife of the head of the government has been under investigation for more than two years for possible influence peddling and corruption in business.