It is no secret that La Moncloa has the worst possible opinion of Juan Carlos Peinado, the intimate enemy of Pedro Sánchez and his wife. The judge decided yesterday to complete the investigation and finally prosecute Begoña Gómez for the commission of four alleged crimes.
The truth is that there is not a single member of the Executive who does not see the case as an exercise in political persecution. The problem is the cannon shots from both sides, because they are demolishing the pillar of the country’s institutional credibility.
The fight between the executive and judiciary has reached an unprecedented level that only contributes to the poor functioning of the country. And that the president’s cabinet considers that it can “dialogue” – this is what it calls direct criticism of Justice -, with which it openly questions its resolutions and actions.
It matters little that the sacrosanct principle of separation of powers is broken because they think in Moncloa that there are judges who make politics with their cars. For this reason, government sources yesterday described Peinado’s order as “unbecoming of a democracy.”
The truth is that Pedro Sánchez has received each blow from Peinado like a slap in the face that has pissed him off like few other things. Yesterday caught the couple on an official trip to China. Although both maneuvered to remove Peinado from the cause, the truth is that the robed man managed to stay ahead. Hairstyle has become the toothache of the president and his wife.
It will be the justice system that will decide whether or not Begoña Gómez has committed any of the four crimes for which she is being prosecuted. But, beyond the penal code, there is the ethical code. In the same way that Sánchez’s spokespeople are wearing Begoña Gómez’s shirt (what else can they wear), in Moncloa there are those who sense that the president’s wife may have overstepped her bounds, gone too far.
Let no one be deceived. This is not about Begoña Gómez having to give up her professional career to sleep in the presidential palace. If not, that he took his professional career from Moncloa. Or, at least, not contaminate it. Begoña Gómez, for example, could have rented an office in Madrid to carry out her professional activity and hired a person to manage her schedule.
The problem, as almost always, is the condition of infallibility that takes over those who hold power for a long time, because it distorts their judgment and completely clouds them.
What’s more, the president’s hard core sees the issue as an all-out political war. Those who sit there reduce everything to a “them” (read the political, judicial and media right), who no longer tolerate them, and want them out of power.
For this reason, they say in the Government, the opposition has made an effort to strip them of all legitimacy. The struggle for power is often cruel and ruthless. But what those who have it should not do is incur deformations. And much less justify them with the hackneyed “and you more” of the Spanish two-party system.
Pedro Sánchez’s narrowest circle in the Government knows what previous prerogatives the partners of the former presidents arrogated to themselves while they lived in Moncloa. “Rajoy’s, Felipe’s…”, concedes an important member of the Executive.
But that is of very little use to the Spanish. And you more, and you more… Only a statute that makes clear what the spouse of the head of the Government can and cannot do will avoid these problems later on. But the current Government has no intention of promoting it, of course, because “it is very complicated,” in the words of a prominent minister. Nothing surprising, on the other hand, because the mere fact of opening up to it would be to recognize that Begoña Gómez did something wrong or ethically reprehensible, as the PNV warned at the time. The PSOE members asked for it. But the socialists refused.
Spain lacks regulations that establish the limits of action for the partner of the person who holds the presidency of the Council of Ministers. Nor is there specific legislation on the institutional role of the King, whose rights and obligations are included in the Constitution without much more detail than those established in the second title: those of mediation between powers of the State, foreign representation of the country and captain general of the Armed Forces.