Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gives a statement to announce that he will remain as prime minister after leaving the government of Spain, at the Monclo Palace in Madrid, Spain, April 29, 2024. | Image Credit: Reuters
A shrewd politician who has built his career on uncertain bets, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez burned his reputation as a risk-taker on April 29 after withdrawing from a possible threat to resign.
“I learned to push myself until the referee blew the final whistle,” the head of Spain’s Socialist Party and former basketball player wrote in his 2019 autobiography, “Resistance Manual.”
That “final whistle” followed Mr Sanchez’s bombshell announcement on April 24 that he was considering stepping down from a court investigation against his wife, Begona Gomez, over allegations of influence-peddling and corruption.
“I have to stop and think,” he wrote in a four-page letter posted on X, as he withdrew from public life for five days, saying he would remain prime minister to end the suspense on April 29.
Investigators Ms. The crisis erupted when an online newspaper said it had opened a preliminary investigation into Gómez, prompting the right-wing opposition Popular Party to demand answers for months about Mr Sánchez’s wife.
Mr. Sánchez’s bombshell response immediately shifted focus to the toxic political practices of targeting politicians’ families and to Spain’s political future.
Denying the move as “political calculation”, Mr. Sánchez said he had decided to stay despite the increasingly “shameful politics” of “deliberate misinformation”.
“After days of thinking, I have a clear answer,” he said, vowing to stay “even more determined” and “show the world how to defend democracy. Let’s end this mudslinging.” He said.
With a charming smile and an amiable personality, the 52-year-old – known as Mr Handsome early in his career – has been written off politically on several occasions, only to bounce back.
He “is never easy,” said Paloma Roman, a political scientist at Madrid’s Complutense University, noting his “ability” to get out of complex situations.
Election setback
Mr. Sánchez emerged from obscurity as a little-known parliamentarian in 2014 to seize control of Spain’s oldest political party.
Born in Madrid on February 29, 1972, a leap year child, he grew up in a good family, the son of an entrepreneur father and a civil servant mother.
He studied economics before earning a master’s degree in political economy at the Free University of Brussels and a doctorate from a private Spanish university.
Elected to the Socialist leadership in 2014, Mr. Sánchez’s future was quickly thrown into doubt after he led the party to its worst electoral defeats in 2015 and 2016.
Ousted from the leadership, he unexpectedly regained his job in the May 2017 primary after a cross-country campaign to rally support in his 2005 Peugeot.
Less than a year later, the father of two teenage girls took office as prime minister in June 2018 after an ambitious gamble that saw him oust conservative Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy in a no-confidence vote.
Always impeccably dressed, the telegenic politician – who loves to run and tower over his rivals at 1.90 meters (6 ft 2 in) – has earned a reputation for being indomitable to the point of obstinacy.
Catalan Amnesty Agreement
In the past six years, he has had to play a delicate balancing act to stay in power.
In February 2019, the fragile alliance of left-wing factions and the pro-independence Basque and Catalan parties that had brought him to the prime ministership cracked, prompting the calling of early elections.
Although his Socialists won, they fell short of an absolute majority, and Mr. Sánchez was unable to muster the support to remain in power, so he called a repeat election later that year.
He was then forced into a marriage of convenience with radical-left Podemos, despite much gnashing of teeth within his own party.
Considered politically dead after his party suffered yet another defeat in local and regional elections in May 2023, Mr Sánchez surprised the country by calling an early general election in July.
While his Socialists finished second behind the right-wing Popular Party (PP), Mr. Sánchez assembled a majority in Parliament.
In exchange for their support, Catalonia’s two main separatist parties sought a controversial amnesty for hundreds of people facing prosecution for their roles in the region’s failed bid for independence in 2017.
Mr. Sánchez had previously opposed such a move but he agreed to remain in power, sparking several mass protests from the far-right.