The electoral call as judicial shield for leaders of the PSOE and the Government

When the list of accused of the Socialist Party and the Government is long, the electoral call will grant certain judicial protection to its leaders in the different cases of corruption that are in the investigation phase: Zapatero case, PSOE financing case, Ferraz sewage procedure, public works rigging case, the Sepi case, etc.

There is a maxim that courts usually respect, where judges avoid interfering with their decisions in electoral processes. This does not mean that the cases that are in the investigation phase are paralyzed or that the trials that have to be held are postponed sine die, but it does mean in practice that the most delicate judicial decisions due to their political repercussions are not carried out in the pre-campaign or electoral campaign.

Both the Government and the PSOE were aware that, as the judicial process progressed, the scenario in the courts was only going to get worse with decisions such as the more than probable accusation of the party as a legal entity in the case of the Ferraz sewers or the lifting of the secrecy of the summary of the alleged irregular financing of the training.

Now, it is foreseeable that these decisions will be postponed to November 29, the day set by the president, Pedro Sánchez, for Spaniards to go to the polls.

Currently, the National Court has accused the former president of the Government and former leader of the PSOE, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of influence peddling and money laundering, the former secretary of the Organization Santos Cerdán and the current manager of the party, Ana María Fuentes, for being part of an alleged criminal organization dedicated to boycotting the causes of corruption that affected the party, the Executive and Sánchez's family.

Likewise, the general director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, and the president of the Sepi, Belén Gualda, are currently charged, as well as the former number two of the former vice president María Jesús Montero, Vicente Fernández. Also the DAO of the Police, Manuel Llamas; the vice president of Sepi, Bartolomé Lora; the former president of Adif Isabel Pardo de Vera and Javier Herrero Lizano, former general director of Highways. All of them are accused of corruption crimes in different proceedings, with even charges such as Santos Cerdán being investigated in more than one procedure (the former secretary of the Socialist Organization is being investigated for the rigging of large public works by the Ministry of Transport but also for being part of the plot dedicated to extorting judges and prosecutors in the pay of Ferraz).

Likewise, there are other former senior officials of Sánchez who have already been convicted, such as the former Minister of Transport and former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos - sentenced to 24 years in prison for nine corruption crimes - or "his" State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, whom the Supreme Court considered responsible for the leak carried out by the Public Ministry to harm the partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a confessed enemy of the Executive.