Forty-four days after his last public appearance, and driven by a new political crisis, Pedro Sánchez addressed the media this Thursday from the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street. The trigger: a damning report from the Civil Guard’s Central Operational Unit (UCO), which points to the existence of a criminal organization within the party, placing Santos Cerdán—until now one of Sánchez’s closest allies—as the figure responsible for managing alleged illegal payments.
Standing behind a lectern marked with the slogan “Spain responds” and the PSOE’s insignia, the Prime Minister apologized repeatedly to the public, though he stopped short of assuming any political responsibility. With a solemn expression, Sánchez claimed to have been deceived by Cerdán: “The PSOE and I, as secretary general, should not have trusted him.” Despite the gravity of the situation, Sánchez ruled out an early election—”There will be no vote until 2027″—and denied that the scandal has caused a government crisis: “This is not affecting the executive.”
Not everyone in his inner circle agrees. According to EL MUNDO, in recent days Sánchez and his core team spoke several times with Cerdán to clarify reports linking him to the so-called Koldo plot. Cerdán, according to government sources, denied any wrongdoing—even on the eve of the UCO report’s release. “We wanted to believe he wasn’t lying to us,” say officials now, with “disappointment” emerging as the word most repeated in La Moncloa. Sánchez put it bluntly: “The Civil Guard’s findings are a huge disappointment.”
The decision to cut ties with Cerdán came just hours after the report’s contents were revealed. On Thursday, following a phone call, Sánchez asked him to resign and hand over his parliamentary seat. Cerdán reiterated his innocence, but the Socialist leader sought to show resolve: “Unfortunately, zero corruption may be impossible, but zero tolerance must always prevail.”
Sánchez aimed to close the crisis before attending a royal event on Thursday celebrating the 40th anniversary of Spain’s accession to the European Communities, held at the Royal Palace alongside King Felipe VI. But the political shockwave continues to reverberate within the party.
The UCO report includes a damning conversation from late 2023 between Cerdán and Koldo García, in which García claims: “They told me that at the European Parliament they had spoken with the President, and that the President said I was corrupt and wanted me dead.”
Cerdán had been a central figure in the PSOE hierarchy. Sánchez appointed him as Organizational Secretary at the party congress in Seville at the end of 2024, despite internal concerns over his links to García—whom he had brought to Madrid from Navarra. Suspicions around Cerdán had already surfaced, and some within the party believed he was already “politically damaged.”
With this appearance at Ferraz, Sánchez is attempting to shield the government from the fallout of a scandal that directly implicates the party. His strategy: confine the damage to the organizational side of the PSOE. While he rules out a cabinet reshuffle or early elections, he has announced a forthcoming renewal of the party’s Federal Executive and an external audit to prove there has been no illegal financing.
The party must now name a new Organizational Secretary. Sánchez has yet to hint at who it might be. The decision will be made during the Federal Committee meeting scheduled for early July.
