Laurence Dollimore
PEDRO Sanchez has announced he will remain in his role as Spain’s prime minister.
The socialist PSOE leader revealed his decision during a press conference at 11am on Monday.
It came after the 52-year-old met with King Felipe IV at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid earlier this morning, to inform the head of state of his decision.
The PM had announced last week that he was pausing all public duties so that he could take the weekend to ‘reflect’ and consider his position.
READ IN ENGLISH: Pedro Sanchez’s speech announcing he will remain as PM in full
It followed what he described as a ‘political attack’ on his wife Begoña by ‘far-right forces’.
She had been accused of ‘peddling influence’ in a denuncia filed by the Manos Limpias organisation.
During a speech today, Sanchez said he and his family had suffered such attacks ‘for the past 10 years’, and that they know ‘they will not stop’.
He said: “My wife and I know that this campaign to discredit us will not stop, but we can confront it.”
He added that the massive support shown over the weekend had ‘influenced’ his decision.
Thousands of people had lined the streets of Madrid on Sunday to show their support for the PM.
Sanchez last week branded the accusations against his wife an attack from right and far right forces and said he no longer knew whether being the PM is ‘worth it’.
In his speech today, he said leading the government was ‘not worth it’ if ‘we allow deliberate fake news to direct the political debate, if we force the victims of these lies to prove their innocence, if we allow the role of women to be relegated to the domestic sphere once again, having to sacrifice their professional careers for the benefit of their husband.”
He branded the complaints against his wife as ‘baseless’, insisting that they were only filed as an attempt to ‘deligitimise’ his role as prime minister.
He wrote: “In short, it is an operation of harassment and demolition by land, sea and air, to try and weaken me politically and personally by attacking my wife.
“I’m not naive. I am aware that they are denouncing Begoña not because she has done something illegal, they know there is no case, but because she is my wife.
“As I am also fully aware that the attacks I suffer are not against me but rather against what I represent: a progressive political option, supported election after election by millions of Spaniards, based on economic progress, social justice and democratic regeneration.”
More to follow…
