Spain’s anticorruption police on Wednesday raided the headquarters of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party in Madrid.
According to Spanish media, agents of the Civil Guard’s elite Central Operative Unit (UCO) were deployed to obtain evidence for an ongoing probe into the alleged illegal financing of the country’s ruling party.
The morning raid comes just one week after the National Court charged former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a key Sánchez ally and longtime Socialist leader, with money laundering, influence peddling and other criminal offenses committed in connection with the 2021 bailout of Plus Ultra airlines.
The El Confidencial news site reported the UCO’s deployment was authorized by the National Court and is linked to an unrelated investigation overseen by Spain’s Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.
Spanish judicial authorities did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
Sánchez’s fragile minority government has been under heavy pressure since news of Zapatero’s indictment.
The regionalist parties that allowed his left-wing coalition to form a government in 2023, and which have been essential for getting legislation through parliament since then, have grown wary of being associated with the prime minister and his party, which has been battered by a steady stream of corruption scandals for the past year.
Aitor Esteban, head of the Basque Nationalist Party, on Sunday said Sánchez should call snap elections before the end of the year, arguing that it would be “very difficult” for the prime minister to remain in power until the current legislative term ends in August 2027.
“There are already nine open cases, now Zapatero,” he said. “It would be irresponsible to continue beyond 2026 without direction, without a budget, without a stable majority, and with an agenda that is out of control and plagued by court cases.”
But that year-end timeline could move up following Wednesday’s raid of the Socialist Party headquarters.
Another key Sánchez ally, the Republican Left of Catalonia’s Gabriel Rufián, on Monday said that the red line for his party would be evidence of widespread corruption in the form of illegal party financing.
Rufián recalled that after the center-right People’s Party was shown to have benefited from a massive graft scheme involving kickbacks, his party backed the 2018 no confidence motion that ousted Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
“We would call for elections if there were a similar case with the Socialists,” he said. “It’s the logical thing to do.”
