The PSOE shot itself in the foot for a very long and bloody time in an extremely sensitive subject for the progressive world, a case of serious sexual harassment in La Moncloa, at the heart of Pedro Sánchez’s power, perpetrated by one of its trusted men, Paco Salazar. The affair was already serious when it broke out in July, but the internal management of the complaints (they spent four months without contacting the victims) ended up damaging the image of the PSOE on this issue and generating a growing internal conflict.
Sánchez’s entourage looked for two quick ways to end this crisis and return to the government’s agenda, in particular health, an issue that will be the subject of the Council of Ministers this Tuesday after the scandal of the management of the Torrejón hospital. First of all, this Tuesday there will be the formal dismissal of Salazar’s right-hand man at La Moncloa, Antonio Hernández, and who at least one victim accuses of covering for Salazar and “gaslighting” him so that he would not give importance to his behavior and would not complain.
But above all, this same Tuesday too, or at most Wednesday, the party plans to close the file of Salazar affair with a very harsh, very energetic report, in which the anti-harassment committee, much criticized internally for its inaction during these months, will agree with the victims and clearly take their side. According to sources close to the internal work of the PSOE, the report will recognize the mistakes made and, above all, offer them the full support of the party; including psychological and legal, with the possibility of remuneration for lawyers if they decide to take the complaint to court.
With Salazar, according to these sources, the conditions will be very harsh, but the PSOE cannot take any legal measures or internal procedures because he left the party. At the PSOE there is a lot of discussion about the possibility of going directly to the public prosecutor’s office to report the matter, because this type of harassment is clearly a crime. But the management and its legal team (Sánchez himself emphasized this on Saturday in front of several congressional journalists), understand that this is not viable because the legislation requires that it is the victims who decide whether or not they want to take this case to court.
It is not clear what will happen to Hernández, who for the moment has not left the PSOE. There could be an internal procedure, but not for harassment, but for not supporting the victims and contributing to their not reporting it sooner.
The anti-harassment committee does not report its actions to management
The details of the case of Antonio Hernández, whose dismissal was announced by the government on Sunday evening, in the middle of the festive weekend, are very eloquent in showing the bizarre internal management of this affair, much criticized within the party and which increases the attrition due to a crisis which has already represented a new direct blow to the credibility of Sánchez in July, he was a third member of the hard core of his maximum confidence who had to be removed from office because of a scandal, after José Luis Abalos and Santos Cerdan. Despite this, he has managed to stay in the background because Salazar is not well known to the public.
The processing of the file accelerated last week, after Pedro Sánchez called on Monday Rebeca Torró, the organizing secretary of the PSOE, very upset, after having learned through elDiario.es, that the party had not spoken to them in over four months. Finally, the anti-harassment committee contacted the victims last week, but, according to various government sources, this group of feminist women responsible for handling this delicate matter informs absolutely no one of their movements because this is specified in the protocol. Nor on the content of the complaints.
This is why the leaders of the government and the PSOE, according to these sources, did not know that Hernández’s name was there and that on Friday, a day before Sánchez spoke in Congress, Salazar’s right-hand man went to testify that Ferraz had been summoned by the anti-harassment committee because his name appeared in the complaints as an accomplice. It was on Sunday, when eldiario.es published this part of the complaint, that Sánchez ordered the immediate dismissal of this senior official. María Jesús Montero, first vice president, and Diego Rubio, chief of staff and team leader of La Moncloa, contacted him to announce it. And there they learned that he was in Ferraz on Friday.
Hernández, according to various sources, denies the accusations, but assumes his departure without opposition. Despite these movements, the PSOE remains completely behind the publication of journalistic information and conveys a feeling of concealment and decision-making dragged down by the public scandal which worries many in its ranks. This is what should in theory begin to change with the closure of the case.
Ferraz affirms that it is the only party that has an anti-harassment commission and a clear protocol for these cases, even if there have been failures in its execution, and assures that it will not accept lessons from the PP, which decided to summon Salazar to the Senate to spread the controversy. Government spokesperson Pilar Alegría, who met Salazar for lunch a few weeks ago when the details of the complaints and why he had left the leadership were not yet known, apologized this Monday to the victims for the slowness of the party, although she accused the PP: “We will not accept any type of lessons from the right or the far right, because the PP and Vox, when they govern, the first thing they do is to restrict women’s rights and make deals with them,” he said.
Interrogation of Rebeca Torró
Despite this, the affair leaves many open wounds and many questions about the functioning of a party that, with Sánchez, already has three different leaderships with serious problems and a common bond: a trio of men, Ábalos, Cerdán and Salazar, who maintained close relationships with each other, came to live together in apartments in Madrid and who played a key role in his career. At the moment of Sánchez’s greatest weakness, when he was excluded from the leadership and found himself very alone, the three representatives from different federations and circumstances opted for his candidacy.
Today the PSOE leadership fears that this affair, the seriousness of which no one denies, will be used internally to act against the team chosen by Sánchez, of which Rebeca Torró is the main representative, with growing internal criticism. Torró was a confidant of Salazar, who was clearly going to be a very powerful man in the new socialist leadership supposed to replace Cerdán, but who fell after the harassment complaints were published on the day he was going to be promoted.
Different PSOE leaders consulted emphasize that the main problem does not lie with the second levels or with Torró, whose dismissal is very unlikely once Sánchez admits the error, nor with the feminists who formed the anti-harassment committee. The underlying problem, they point out, is that Sánchez chose Cerdán to fix Ábalos’s disaster after he left, and then Salazar to fix Cerdán’s after he entered prison, even though all three were from the same political group. It is the selection of Sánchez’s trusted people that calls this new scandal into question, these leaders insist.
About The Author
