Spain’s Sanchez €aunts his knack for survival in chaos
A shrewd politician who has built his career on uncertain wagers, Spain’s Pedro Sanchez burnished his reputation as a risk taker on Monday after pulling back from a threat to potentially resign.
“I have learnt to push myself until the referee blows the nal whistle,” the head of Spain’s Socialist party and a former basketball player wrote in his 2019 autobiography, Resistance Manual.
That “nal whistle” had appeared to be in the oªing on Wednesday after Mr. Sanchez’s bombshell announcement that he was considering stepping down over a court investigation into his wife Begona Gomez for alleged in°uencepeddling and corruption.
“I need to stop and think,” he wrote in a fourpage letter posted on ◣ as he stepped back from public life for ve days, only to end the suspense on Monday saying he would stay on as Premier.
The crisis erupted when an online newspaper said investigators had opened a preliminary probe into Ms. Gomez, prompting the right-wing Opposition Popular Party, which has gone after Mr. Sanchez for months about his wife, to demand answers.
Mr. Sanchez’s bombshell response immediately switched the focus onto toxic political practices targeting politicians’ families, and to Spain’s political future.
‘Not a calculated move’
Denying the move was a “political calculation”, Mr. Sanchez said he had decided to stay on despite “the politics of shame” which was increasingly being driven by “deliberate disinformation”.
“After days of re°ection, I have a clear answer,” he said, pledging to stay on “with even more determination” then ever, and “to show the world how to defend democracy. Let’s put an end to this mudslinging,” he said.