Left Behind
Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister and leader of the Spanish Worker’s Socialist Party (2025). Photo courtesy of Heute.
The tables have turned. From toppling the right-leaning government over illegal campaign financing to denouncing cases of mismanaged funds, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) has positioned itself as the moral compass against its corrupt political rivals for decades. But the party once hailed as a guardian of social progress is now being accused of embezzling millions through the inner circle of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The party’s response? Silence. The case is one of many recent scandals of the PSOE that demonstrate how the party has created an internal culture of loyalty that preserves its ruling coalition while sidelining transparency and accountability. By eroding the very legitimacy it claims to defend, the PSOE risks ultimately alienating voters and weakening its own political viability
The scandal centers on the alleged embezzlement of over €50 million in COVID-era contracts funneled through companies tied to former transport adviser Koldo García, implicating senior PSOE figures, including ex-minister José Luis Ábalos and organization secretary Santos Cerdán. The Supreme Court has since expanded the investigation to public works contracts allegedly approved in exchange for kickbacks, estimating personal gains of more than €5 million. Alarmingly, testimony even suggests that Prime Minister Sánchez was aware of the scheme.
More appalling than the scandal itself is the response from the left: a wave of loyalty that has extended beyond those directly involved, shaping the behavior of the leadership, both within PSOE as well as its coalition partners.
The reason for this widespread culture of loyalty is political power. Fragmentation threatens to unravel the fragile thread holding together Spain’s left-leaning ruling coalition. At the coalition’s center is the PSOE, led by Pedro Sánchez, governing alongside Sumar—an electoral alliance led by Yolanda Díaz that includes factions like Compromís and Izquierda Unida (IU). With only about 155 out of 350 seats in Congress, the two parties rely on support from smaller regional, nationalist parties such as the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Junts per Catalunya, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), EH Bildu, and Coalición Canaria to govern effectively (some of which are right-leaning!). The lack of ideological unity among the left makes the coalition inherently unstable in comparison to the Spanish right, which pushes PSOE and its allies to prioritise loyalty over consistent ideals to maintain power. As such, none of the coalition parties have supported calls for a vote of no confidence by the right-leaning People’s Party (PP) or Vox, or demanded Sánchez’s resignation in response to the Koldo case. Instead, they have merely reaffirmed their commitment to government stability amid emerging scandals, refusing to dissolve the coalition or force early elections.
When criticism has arisen, it is more advisory than confrontational. Allied parties Unidas Podemos and Sumar have called for more transparency. The coordinator of Izquierda Unida, Antonio Maíllo, recognised that, despite the need for stronger anti-corruption policies, breaking with PSOE would risk a government collapse. As a result, the socialist party continues to be defended as the lesser evil compared to an allegedly entrenched right-leaning corruption. This framing has only strengthened following the recent indictment of the former Minister of Finance from the right-leaning PP for bribery, fraud, prevarication, corruption, falsification of documents, and prohibited negotiations. The coordinator of Sumar has even stated that “the [PSOE] government is worth defending to prevent a figure like Trump from storming Congress.”
What’s even more worrying is the opportunistic complicity that regional nationalist parties such as ERC and Junts have embraced, seeking satisfaction of certain conditions for continued support. Aware of their crucial role in sustaining the current government, they hold the upper hand and demand that the Prime Minister travel to their regions to negotiate concessions, revealing the asymmetric power dynamics that now define national governance. From successfully transferring control over immigrant work permits to the nationalist PNV in the Basque Country to renegotiating funding arrangements with Junts in Catalonia, strategic silence has become a potent weapon in Parliament. The broader left has prioritised political survival over ethical consistency.
To hold together the coalition, the PSOE maintains this culture of impunity most visibly by exploiting legal privileges to shield its allies from prosecution. Even under criminal investigation, Santos Cerdán retained “aforamiento”—immunity from being tried in ordinary courts—until mounting public outrage forced Parliament to lift his protections. Similarly, regional leader Miguel Ángel Gallardo secured immunity through what the Superior Court of Justice has called a blatant “fraud of law,” expelling five candidates ahead of him from a regional parliamentary list in one day upon learning he might be prosecuted.
But protecting its members is not the only way the party consolidates power. Institutional shielding is paired with a culture of enforced silence, where dissent is punished to preserve unity. Odón Elorza, the former Secretary for Transparency, recalled being sidelined, silenced, and even physically discouraged from speaking in meetings until he resigned in 2023, describing his contributions as “no longer useful.” Regional president Emiliano García-Page recently described the PSOE as “intolerant of dissent,” gripped by a cult of leadership that suffocates internal democracy. Victor de Aldama, a businessman connected to the Koldo case who was released from prison after agreeing to provide information to authorities, even survived a politically-motivated assassination attempt. Those who deviate from the party line risk political isolation or worse.
Just as troubling is the collective refusal to condemn wrongdoing. From Secretary of State for Infrastructure Isabel Pardo de Vera’s years of silence after being charged, to the efforts of socialist Leire Díez to obstruct criminal investigations and regional leaders like Francina Armengol and Ángel Víctor Torres denying responsibility for millions in shady contracts—there is a clear pattern of evasion to shield PSOE from public and judicial accountability. In regards to the current scandals, no internal commission has been launched to clarify the facts. Disciplinary actions have been minimal and symbolic. Even the party’s spokesperson in Parliament continues to frame the scandal as a partisan smear, claiming that the right is simply weaponizing corruption. The party’s eagerness for political power blinds it to the very accountability it once demanded from others, and its message is clear: unity comes first, truth comes second.
But unlike their politicians, leftist voters are not choosing silence. PSOE’s strategy of enabling corruption may keep its coalition afloat in the short term, but it is politically corrosive in the long run. While many voters continue to embrace a partisan “lesser evil”—60 percent still favor Sánchez’s continuation in office despite 80 percent expressing political disillusionment—this loyalty masks a deepening contradiction among PSOE supporters. Both major parties have institutionalized corruption without enacting any meaningful reform, making voters feel as though corruption has become an inescapable result of any ruling coalition. For some voters, especially those over 50 and residents in traditionally socialist regions like Andalusia or Extremadura, the scandals are viewed as a regrettable exception, not a betrayal of the party’s core values. Indeed, the July 2025 electoral barometers from the National Centre of Sociological Studies (CIS) and the independent Sigma Dos show PSOE support dropping over 7 percent to 27 percent. Yet the party is still narrowly ahead of or tied with the PP, suggesting that many disillusioned voters are staying in the fold, if uneasily.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that PSOE’s strategy of discretion is working out. The scandal has exposed a mismatch between the leftist party’s ideals—transparency, social justice, and democratic renewal—and the realization of such ideals in party behavior. Younger voters and women, especially those under 40, have shifted away from PSOE. Though some of these lost votes stem from the release of voice messages in which Koldo and Ábalos detailed encounters with prostitutes in a demeaning manner, it is clear that voters have not become desensitized to corruption. Rather, the gap between what the PSOE claims to stand for and how it actually behaves when in power has created a partisan identity crisis: Some voters stay because they feel trapped, while others leave because the moral weight of staying feels too heavy. In a post-scandal focus group conducted by Cadena SER in July, many respondents in their twenties and thirties expressed a sense of “political homelessness”— they feel unable to support the PSOE in good conscience, but remain unconvinced that smaller parties like Sumar or Podemos could deliver change.
This crisis could harm PSOE’s electoral viability in the long run. While a portion of disenchanted voters appears to be shifting modestly toward smaller leftist parties like Podemos or Sumar, a more alarming trend is the 5.7 point surge in support for Vox, a party whose populist message feeds on precisely this kind of disaffection. The addition of roughly 1.4 million voters to the far-right’s base, combined with moderate centre-left voters drifting toward the PP, could ensure a practical parliamentary majority for centre-right and far-right forces, leaving PSOE weakened despite its current hold on power.
PSOE’s strategy of prioritising loyalty over accountability is counterproductive for its political survival in the long run. Even though voters are not abandoning the party en masse today, the growing partisan identity crisis threatens PSOE’s future electoral base and leaves space for the right and far-right to gain ground. Unless the party regains credibility and aligns its actions with its ideals, Spain risks a Parliament dominated by centre-right and far-right forces. To survive, the PSOE must reclaim both the voters and the values it has left behind.
Helena Fernández Garrido (‘28) is a sophomore student enrolled in the Dual BA between Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris. She is studying politics and law with a minor in international relations.