Madrid: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he would suspend public duties until next week to decide whether he wants to continue leading the government after a court launched a business corruption probe into his wife’s private dealings.
Sanchez, who last year secured another term for his Socialist party as leader of a minority coalition government, said on Thursday (AEST) he would appear before the media on Monday, April 29, to announce his decision.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.Credit: AP
“I need to pause and think,” he wrote in a letter shared on his X account. “I urgently need an answer to the question of whether it is worthwhile (…) whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honour.”
The shock announcement came after a Spanish court said earlier it was launching a preliminary investigation into whether Sanchez’s wife Begona Gomez committed a crime of influence peddling and corruption in business in her private dealings.
Sanchez said the seriousness of the attacks against him and his wife merited a measured response. He said his wife would cooperate with the investigation and defend her innocence.
Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez’s wife, María Begona Gomez Fernandez .Credit: Getty
The court investigating Gomez did not provide further details as the case is sealed and preliminary, only saying it followed a complaint raised by anti-corruption campaign group Manos Limpias – Clean Hands – whose leader has links to the far-right.
Manos Limpias said Gomez used her influence as the wife of the prime minister to allegedly secure sponsors for a university master’s degree course she ran.
Sanchez also took aim at opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo of the People’s Party (PP) and Santiago Abascal of the far-right Vox party, saying they had “collaborated” with those circulating the claims against his wife.
