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Malaga
Friday, 6 December 2024, 15:29
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was reelected leader of the PSOE Socialist party at the party’s national conference in Seville last weekend.
In a mixed atmosphere of self-congratulation and defensiveness, delegates voted for Sánchez unopposed. In his speech on Sunday he called on the Socialists to go into fighting mode with an eye on elections that, on paper at least, are still a long way off.
Speakers at the conference spent two days presenting the party as a victim of a“witch hunt” in which even the courts were involved. The Socialist-led government and several senior party members have been permanent fixtures in the headlines in recent weeks over allegations of corruption and malpractice.
The prime minister told his party that winning against the far-right “and the right-wing who are hostages of that far-right” had to be its “historic responsibility”. Not only for our country, he went on to say, “but for the whole of social democracy”.
Sánchez continued, “There are progressive forces all over Europe that see us as an example to follow. And we are so because the Spanish model is a success and we have to remind people and repeat it day in and day out.”
The party’s top table has been largely unchanged following the conference. Political direction continues under deputy prime minister and finance minister, María Jesús Montero, and the organisation and running under party number three, Santos Cerdán.
Among the few voices of criticism around the senior leadership was the president of the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha. Speaking to journalists outside the conference, which he only attended part of, Emiliano García-Page urged his party “to avoid everything that puts into question the constitutional system” and not “to play the role of victim, however legitimate it was”.
Among the announcements at the conference was the setting up of a future government-owned construction company to encourage the building of new homes and make up for the widely recognised lack of affordable housing.
The successful party conference for Sánchez continued against a background of corruption allegations outside.
More accusations emerged this week. Fresh evidence submitted by Víctor de Aldama, the alleged linchpin of the Koldos case, one of the main corruption investigations under way, further implicated the party’s former number two, José Luis Ábalos. It accused Ábalos of making decisions to award public-service contracts in return for bribes when he was minister of transport.
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