Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Monday he would not resign, nearly a week after publicly raising the possibility in response to corruption allegations against his wife that he and other officials called a smear campaign, Spanish media reported.
The Spanish minister said in a televised statement:
“I have decided to continue on with even more strength at the helm of the government of Spain.”
The court complaint against his wife, Begona Gomez, was filed by a legal platform that alleges Mrs Gomez used her position to influence business deals.
The group Manos Limpias, or “Clean Hands”, has admitted the complaint was based on newspaper articles. Spanish prosecutors say it should be dismissed. Mr. Sánchez said the move was too personal an attack on his family and he needed time to get his priorities straight.
Mr. Sánchez, 52, has been Spain’s prime minister since 2018. He has blamed the investigation on online news sites politically linked to the leading opposition People’s Party and the Vox party, which spread what he called “false” allegations. His supporters say it should be a wake-up call to respond to the unfounded attacks that are poisoning Spanish politics.
Thousands of Socialist Party supporters travelled to a Saturday rally in Madrid to urge minister to stay in office after announcing his resignation.
Clean Hands has said it would keep pressing. Miguel Bernad, the leader of the group, said on Sunday:
“We are going to add new data this week to the complaint.”
Mr. Bernad, who has himself become the subject of fierce debate in Spain over whether he is a knowing tool of the far-right wing or simply seeking to hold his government accountable, said his group had carried out an “exhaustive investigation.”
But he had also acknowledged in a previous statement that the judge might find that some of the supposed evidence his group had cited in its complaint — which was based “only on” articles critical of Mr. Sánchez — was “not true.”
Mr. Bernad cast himself and Clean Hands as the targets of a politically motivated pressure campaign, saying that “the media incriminates and throws stones at the messenger.”
