by Unai Gómez-Hernández
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE)’s recent alleged corruption scandal involving a backhander scheme and two former number-twos in the party may prove to be the silver lining Spain’s political system needs to reform and modernize its political parties. The decision now rests in the hands of party leaders.
On the morning of Feb. 21, 2024, Spaniards woke up to the news that an advisor to José Luis Ábalos, the former Spanish Minister of Transport and second in command to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, had been detained over corruption allegations. The party’s swift response was to request that the former minister renounce his position as a member of parliament. However, Ábalos, who had played an integral role in the inner workings of the party for years, refused and was expelled from the Socialist parliamentary group, though he retained his seat in the lower chamber. At the time, many hailed this action as an exemplary move by Sánchez. Yet the story has since taken a further twist: on June 30, Santos Cerdán, Ábalos’ successor at the helm of the party’s de facto leadership and a key architect of its electoral lists, was imprisoned on corruption charges. The Spanish electorate and socialist militants were shocked by the scale and nature of the scandal, which is still unfolding. The two accused men had allegedly orchestrated a system of backhanders together with the detained advisor, personally profiting while emptying the government coffers.
Given that Sánchez has repeatedly misjudged his choice of second-in-command, many in Spain are now asking what has gone wrong with the system of internal controls between the government and the party, what the consequences of the actions of the two accused men are for Spanish democracy, and whether such scandals could happen again.
To answer this question, citizens should consider the role of political parties in liberal democracies such as Spain. Traditionally, these actors have served as a transmission belt between society and the state, and Spain is no exception. After the right-wing dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975, the center-left PSOE, together the now almost disappeared Communist Party, mobilized and organized Spanish society during the transition period. The socialists played a crucial role in drafting the Spanish constitution and modernizing the country during its time in power from 1982 to 1996. One of the party’s great successes at the time was the political socialization of large sections of the population. Indeed, for many Spaniards, the left-wing formation was their first encounter with democratic politics. After the PSOE lost the elections, the center-right People’s Party (Partido Popular, PP) took the relay, demonstrating that a modern, democratic political right had emerged in Spain—one that, with some notable individual exceptions, had distanced itself from the dictatorial forces of the Francoist era. These two parties shaped Spain’s young democracy during its early years and helped bring it in line with its European neighbors.
Since the turn of the 21st century, and most notably after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, however, these two parties have also suffered from the same affliction as many of their European counterparts: the growing dominance of the executive and the erosion of democratic processes. These issues are not new, and democracy theorists such as the late Irish political scientist Peter Mair identified them as some of the most significant challenges to liberal democracy in the 21st century.
These two dynamics, an overpowered executive and the reduction of democratic processes to mere formalities, are closely connected and help explain the recent scandals that have shaken the PSOE.
Structural Flaws of Liberal Democracies in the 21st Century
It is hard to imagine that Ábalos and Cerdán acted entirely on their own, without any awareness from others in the party. However, the failure to report their alleged wrongdoings is easily explained by the system of incentives embedded in Western political parties, regardless of their political alignment. For anyone seeking a political career, pleasing the party leadership is essential, since those leaders decide who will run in the next elections. In the case of the PSOE, these gatekeepers were Ábalos and Cerdán. It is plausible that rumors about their activities never reached Pedro Sánchez because few would have risked antagonizing such powerful figures.
This dynamic is compounded by the executive’s near-absolute dominance over the legislature, a common feature of liberal democracies these days. In Spain, parliamentary oversight mechanisms, such as inquiry committees in the Cortes Generales and question sessions for the prime minister and the wider government, have been reduced to rhetorical exercises with little substantive debate. The current parliament’s inability to compel a debate on the state of the nation or to secure a new government budget since it was elected illustrates this imbalance and is a further example of the executive’s primacy.
Executive overreach is not unique to the Sánchez’s tenure, which controls the current coalition government. Under President Mariano Rajoy, the PP’s absolute majority further concentrated power in the executive. That government eventually fell due to a poorly managed corruption scandal involving some members of the right-wing party, although it was larger in scale and more protracted in resolution than the current PSOE case. Whereas the mastermind behind the PP scandal was expelled only after many years had passed, the PSOE acted quickly to remove Ábalos and Cerdán from the party.
Still, the comparison between the PSOE and PP corruption scandals underscores a broader point: the connection between executive dominance, the hollowing out of democratic oversight, and corruption scandals is a persistent feature of Spain’s political system, not a passing trend.
The fact that two prominent politicians were allegedly able to divert millions of taxpayers’ money without detection speaks to a structural weakness: key party figures wielding unchecked internal power, combined with a legislature too weak to hold the executive to account.
The Way Forward – How Spanish Political Parties Can Regain Centrality in Their System
The fact that this is not the first time a major political party has faced such a scandal will likely cause deeper political disenchantment. While recent measures announced by Prime Minister Sánchez, including a transparency package, an external audit, a partial reform of the PSOE’s federal committee, and a party organ that governs its internal affairs, are welcome, they fall short. These measures do not address the root causes of citizens’ disillusionment with Spanish liberal democracy and will therefore do little to prevent it from worsening in the years to come.
Additional measures that the party leader could adopt would need to go further. First, the decision-making processes within the party should be collectivized. Moving away from a highly centralized executive leadership style toward a more collegiate approach would reduce groupthink, enhance the democratic legitimacy of decisions, and reinforce the internal structures of the political parties. Such a system might indeed have prevented the appointment of Cerdán following the fall of his former superior, Ábalos.
Second, Spain urgently needs to separate party leadership from government office. It is unrealistic to expect the same person to govern the country while leading a political party. This challenge, closely linked to the aforementioned dynamics surrounding the drafting of electoral lists, affects all Spanish parties equally and is also common across most Western democracies. A genuine division between government and party functions would provide a training ground for future politicians, allowing them to specialize in their areas of responsibility within the party without being overwhelmed by the public representation duties that come with being part of a government.
Third, closely linked to this separation is the need to reconsider the model of the career politician. Liberal democracies were never designed to be governed by permanent representatives who rotate between posts and spend their entire careers exclusively inside public administrations. A lifetime confinement to representative roles often distances politicians from everyday realities and prevents them from acquiring technical expertise. Combined with the insular power dynamics of political parties, this weakens the vital links between society and state.
Despite the bleakness of the current moment—and the boost it has given to the radical right in the polls—there is room for hope. With the right reforms, Spain can restore the health of its liberal democracy.
Implementing these proposals would be a first step, one that could position Spain as an example of accountability and sound party governance for other European democracies. Change will be slow, and the process will be difficult, as these dynamics are deeply embedded in political culture. Yet this is the only way, in Peter Mair’s words, for politicians to “rule the societies they represent” rather than “rule the void.”
Unai Gómez-Hernández is a joint PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh and KU Leuven. His work revolves around the connections between international and domestic illiberal actors in the European Union and EU-China relations at the European Parliament.
