The Government had managed to regain the pulse of the political agenda thanks above all to the war in Iran, which has placed Pedro Sánchez in a much clearer position of rejection than that of the PP. The “no to war” has been politically very important to reactivate the initiative of a president who always moves comfortably on the international scene and sees how the resounding rejection of Donald Trump, 81% of Spaniards and 71% specifically of PP voters see him as the main threat to peace in the world, according to the recent 40dB survey. for EL PAÍS and Cadena SER.
However, this week is being completely different for the Executive, which is moving on the defensive these days because the trial of the Ábalos case has returned to the media spotlight the black hole of the PSOE and the president himself, the issue that has caused him the most wear and tear in these almost eight years in La Moncloa, the only one that was really close to causing his fall: corruption, nepotism and the use of prostitution in what was his most trusted person, the former Minister of Transport and former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE.
The members of the Government consulted are trying these days not to follow the details of the trial because everything that comes out seems “disgusting”, “painful”, “devastating”, according to the expressions used by several of them. And they admit that the immediate political effect of this trial is that it is almost impossible to try to talk about anything else on the national political scene, with the exception of the war in Iran, which continues to have a great impact on Spanish politics and still forces Alberto Núñez Feijóo to reinforce his turn away from Trump to try not to be dragged down by the American president’s outbursts.
This week the Government had, for example, an important measure in the Council of Ministers, such as the constitutional reform to guarantee that abortion is practiced in public centers, something that happens in several autonomous communities, but not in others such as Madrid or Andalusia, where it does not reach 1%, but the press conference was totally dominated by questions about the trial of the Ábalos case.
The most gruesome details of the plugs in public companies and the payment of rent for Ábalos’ girlfriends fill the television talk shows, and in La Moncloa they admit that their agenda is overshadowed even though it is not a bad moment for the Executive, especially after the figure of 22 million employed people with which the week started and which Sánchez himself advertised with a national team shirt with the number 22. “It’s a lost week, It is impossible to talk about anything positive,” admits a member of the Government, who believes that this situation is likely to last throughout the trial, two weeks.
However, several members of the Executive consulted insist that everything that is appearing in the trial was already known in the investigation, there is no new data, although it always has an effect to hear it directly from the protagonists in court, and that is why they trust that it will no longer have the political effect that it had in the past. This is a very strong wear and tear for the Government and especially for the PSOE, especially in the female vote, disgusted by the language and attitudes of Ábalos and Koldo García towards some women. “The trial is making it clear that we are talking about individual behavior, not something systemic within the PSOE. There is no illegal financing. All of this is already known and I hope, therefore, that it is amortized,” says a minister.
“I think the damage was already done at the time, and it was very strong, no one denies it,” adds another. “But now it is only the verification of what is known. It is evident that it was a mistake to have Ábalos in such important positions. But we fired him even before he was charged. And above all it is clear that this is his doing, not an organized system like the Kitchen case, “that of the PP, which had a political structure to obstruct the action of justice,” he insists. The fact that both cases coincide in time makes the Government try to use the scandal that affects the PP as a way to cover up its own, although privately various members admit that the and you more It only serves to fuel the anti-politics that does more harm to the left than to the right, according to his analysis.
Meanwhile, the president, who this week has no control session or press conferences planned and therefore avoids having to answer openly about his former right-hand man, is concentrating on other issues. In particular, it focuses on the international situation, which directly affects Spain due to its geostrategic and economic effects. Sánchez does not give up in his efforts to position himself as Trump’s great nemesis, a title that has been awarded to him by various international media in the US, Europe and Latin America, and this Wednesday he said on social networks that “the Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire because they show up with a bucket”, in clear reference to the American leader.
The president travels this weekend to China, where he will have a three-day visit, his fourth in a row, something unprecedented. Sánchez has an intense political and economic agenda there that demonstrates his commitment to getting closer to the Chinese regime at a time when competition between Washington and Beijing is fierce. From China, the President of the Government will focus on the international agenda and the business possibilities for Spanish companies and large Chinese investments in Spain, something he has already done in recent years with mixed success. But this international agenda will once again help him focus on long-standing issues that affect thousands of jobs and key sectors while avoiding the issue that has worn him down the most until now, this is precisely the Ábalos case and its devastating derivative, which is the Cerdán case, Sánchez’s second organizational secretary who ended up in jail.
The Government therefore chooses to remember that it did everything it could do – remove those involved from their positions and from the PSOE – and admit that it feels “empathy” towards the citizens’ indignation with corruption, but the main strategy in reality is to trust that everything will end quickly and we can move on to another issue, because this one seems absolutely impossible to manage politically. Furthermore, the level of Ábalos and Cerdán is so high that the only way to assume political responsibility for the scandal would be for the president to resign, something that he himself has admitted was raised in July 2025 and that he ruled out so as not to harm the progressive coalition project. Therefore, everything indicates that a probable conviction of Ábalos will not have direct political consequences because there are no more possible resignations, but it will deepen a deterioration that has already been noted in the polls, which continue to give the PSOE well below what it was in 2023. Although Sánchez insists that there will be no elections until 2027, and that gives the Government a lot of room to try to get out of the Ábalos black hole in time and as long as the economic data supports it.
