Eight years ago this week Pedro Sánchez became Spain’s prime minister after he organised and won a parliamentary censure motion(不信任动议) against Mariano Rajoy, the conservative incumbent. The prompt was the conviction for corruption of former officials in Mr Rajoy’s centre-right People’s Party (PP). Now Spanish politics has come almost full circle. Having promised to regenerate(重建，复兴) Spanish democracy, Mr Sánchez finds himself weakened by scandals involving leading figures in his own Socialist Party. He faces calls for a general election that polls suggest the right would win. But he insists that his left-of-centre government will carry on until the end of the current parliament’s term in July 2027 “and beyond”.
八年前的这一周，佩德罗·桑切斯在组织并赢得针对保守派现任首相马里亚诺·拉霍伊的议会不信任动议后，成为西班牙首相。导火索是拉霍伊的中右翼人民党前官员因腐败被定罪。如今，西班牙政治几乎回到了原点。桑切斯曾承诺重建西班牙民主，却发现自己因社会党内部要员卷入丑闻而实力削弱。他面临提前大选的呼声，民调显示右翼将获胜。但他坚称，其中左翼政府将继续执政，直至本届议会任期结束（2027年7月），“甚至更久”。
Two of Mr Sánchez’s closest aides in the party, José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán, were indict(起诉，控告)ed in 2024 and 2025 respectively for rigging public contracts. The prime minister claimed betrayal, apologised and vowed to carry on. But if anything(恰恰相反，甚至可以说), the latest blows are even more severe. Last month a high-court judge named José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a former Socialist prime minister praised by some as the guardian of the party’s current values, as the suspected leader of an influence-peddling racket.(上个月，一名高等法院法官指控前社会党首相何塞·路易斯·罗德里格斯·萨帕特罗（被一些人誉为该党当前价值观的守护者）为一个权力寻租团伙的疑似头目。)
桑切斯在党内的两位最亲密助手——何塞·路易斯·阿瓦洛斯和桑托斯·塞尔丹——分别于2024年和2025年因操纵公共合同被起诉。首相声称遭到背叛，道歉并誓言继续前进。但恰恰相反，最新的打击更加严重。上个月，一名高等法院法官指控前社会党首相何塞·路易斯·罗德里格斯·萨帕特罗（被一些人誉为该党当前价值观的守护者）为一个权力寻租团伙的疑似头目。
The judicial probe(调查，探究) centres on Mr Zapatero’s controversial ties to the dictatorship in Venezuela, and in particular on a €53m ($62m) bail-out(救助，纾困) by Mr Sánchez’s government of Plus Ultra, a Venezuelan-Spanish airline, during the pandemic. The judge claims that payments of around €2m to Mr Zapatero and his daughters for consultancy work were mainly a commission(佣金，回扣) for arranging the rescue. Mr Zapatero, like the other Socialists targeted in judicial investigations, denies wrongdoing. Mr Sánchez has never clearly explained why Plus Ultra, which had only four planes, received a bail-out designed for Spanish companies of strategic economic importance.
司法调查的核心是萨帕特罗与委内瑞拉独裁政权的有争议关系，特别是桑切斯政府在大流行期间对一家委内瑞拉-西班牙航空公司Plus Ultra的5300万欧元（6200万美元）救助。法官声称，支付给萨帕特罗及其女儿作为咨询费的约200万欧元主要是安排救助的佣金。萨帕特罗与司法调查针对的其他社会党人一样，否认有不法行为。桑切斯从未明确解释为什么只有四架飞机的Plus Ultra会获得为具有战略经济重要性的西班牙公司设计的救助。