The European Parliament’s Liberties Committee; the Group of States against Corruption; the Bank of Spain; the World Bank and a good number of economic and legal organizations have been warning for several years about the growing deterioration of institutional quality in Spain and its direct impact on citizens’ democratic trust.
The degeneration of the institutional architecture is already a first-order problem in this final stretch of the legislature, a problem that has fully erupted with the open clash between the Executive power and the other two branches of the State: the Legislative and the Judicial. A relentless war that began after the 2023 elections and has intensified to reach a critical moment poisoned by corruption.
The Government thus embarks on the last months of its mandate entrenched against a Parliament in which it no longer has majority support, dragging three years without Budgets, adopting decisions through the decree-law figure to bypass debate, besieged by judicial investigations, pressured by minor partners determined to exploit its weakness, and moving allied pawns on all fronts to try to shield itself by prolonging a legislature that only deepens the extreme polarization and division of the country.
The first steps of this confrontation stage were taken three years ago when after the 23-J elections, Pedro Sánchez buried his constitutional principles for the seven votes he lacked to remain in power despite having lost at the polls. He achieved this in exchange for granting amnesty to those convicted in the procés, which he had abhorred just days before.
The amnesty fractured not only the political class but also the Justice system and, worse, society. To shore up that pact with the independence movement, which even within the ranks of classical socialism was labeled unnatural, Sánchez placed a first piece on the board to rein in a Parliament that, due to its fragmentation, already anticipated swampy territory.
With the majority formed with Sumar, he placed Francina Armengol as president of the Congress. It was a first gesture towards nationalists and separatists who saw in her a defender of the thesis of the State as a plurinational entity and a well-oiled mechanism to impose the Executive’s needs and its own pressures on the Legislature.
Armengol immediately satisfied these aspirations by promoting, even before the Plenary approved it, the use of co-official languages in the Chamber. It was her inaugural decision. Her work leading the Congress has caused clashes with the opposition for twisting and ignoring the Rules of Procedure, acting as a transmission belt for government interests.
Playing with timing to postpone uncomfortable appearances; vetoing risky amendments and initiatives for the Government; paralyzing bills from the Senate to avoid their likely approval; using institutional speeches to fertilize Moncloa’s propaganda; and even preventing debates and votes that would reveal the weakness of a president who no longer has majority support in Parliament… are some examples of her mandate. Never before in these three years has the Congress been involved in so many conflicts over the allocation of powers with the other Chamber, which represents national sovereignty dominated, because the polls decided so, by the opposition, and which Sánchez has decided not to enter, considering it hostile territory.
Under these conditions, Parliament faces the end of the mandate without having debated or approved Budgets, without having held a single debate on the state of the Nation, and subjected to the tyranny of the royal decree-law, which curtails the right to discussion and amendment by parliamentary groups. The deterioration of Parliament, turned into a wrestling ring, has been progressive but took a qualitative leap in September 2024 when Sánchez stated before the PSOE Federal Committee his decision to govern “with or without the participation of the Legislative Power.”
Jordi Rodríguez Virgili, PhD and professor of Political Communication at the University of Navarra, maintains that the deterioration is clear, with a “drift of the parliamentary system towards presidentialism and a partisan use of State institutions.” This, he says, “leads to blurring the distinction between Government and State.” In his opinion, it is difficult to establish when it all started. “It is usually,” he explains, “a process of degradation, but it becomes evident when the president says he is willing to move forward with or without Parliament’s support, something that cannot happen in a parliamentary system.”
When Sánchez uttered this phrase, without having reached the midterm of the legislature, the Government had already placed pawns in other institutions, some from the previous legislature and others in the current one. Among them are José Féliz Tezanos, former member of the PSOE Executive, heading the CIS; Beatriz Corredor, former Minister of Housing, leading Red Eléctrica; Pedro Saura, former Secretary of State, in charge of Correos; Mariano Moreno, president of Enusa; José Luis Escrivá, former Minister of Social Security, as governor of the Bank of Spain; Belén Gualda, former senior official of the Andalusian Government with the PSOE and now president of SEPI; Maurici Lucena, former socialist spokesperson in the Parliament of Catalonia, president of Aena; and Mercedes González, former general secretary of the Madrid socialists and now director general of the Civil Guard under investigation.
Rodríguez Virgili points out: “The institutional crisis is seen in the lack of neutrality, in the subordination of public bodies and even companies to the Government’s interests. It can be said that it has always been like this, but now even people without the necessary qualifications are appointed.” For him, the most affected institution is Parliament, but he also mentions others such as the CIS, “which has lost all credibility,” or RTVE, “with a clear government bias,” and even the Council of Ministers’ press conferences “used to attack opponents or regional presidents, forgetting that they are the Government of all Spaniards.”
The Judiciary has not come out unscathed either. There is the appointment in January 2023 of Cándido Conde-Pumpido, former Attorney General under Zapatero, as head of the Constitutional Court with the vote of all self-styled progressives, and also that of Álvaro García Ortiz, in August 2022, as Attorney General, convicted for revealing secrets and replaced by Teresa Peramato. Conde-Pumpido and García Ortiz have been the two pillars of Sánchez’s influence in Justice.
The Constitutional Court has become a sort of cassation instance against Supreme Court rulings, overruling, for example, in the ERE case and endorsing the amnesty against the highest court’s convictions. In his inauguration speech as head of the TC, Conde-Pumpido emphasized that “the Constitution does not allow secession, independence, or self-determination”; later, he supported the erasure of crimes committed within the framework of the procés.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s office squandered its independence seal with García Ortiz until becoming the executing arm and defender of the prosecuted socialists and the Prime Minister’s family members.
This well-positioned board of pieces has also been contaminated by corruption scandals, against which judges and courts have undertaken, despite the power’s undisguised attacks, thorough investigations. The list of those charged related to the PSOE, the Government, and Pedro Sánchez’s family environment runs into the dozens. Corruption is now the key reagent that undermines institutional architecture, poisons citizens’ trust in democracy, and injects toxicity into any debate until it becomes a fierce war.
The professor of Political Communication at the Complutense University, María José Canel, offers an original approach. She argues that language is the most deteriorated institution and “from there everything else.” The professor points out, like León XIV, that words “have become a weapon.” “In Parliament,” she adds, “there is no longer a common space. Semantic precision has been lost and everything is urgent, historic, very serious, conspiracy, hoax. Everything is named according to extremes. Post-truth is not only lying but preventing proper data analysis or constructing fictitious scenarios outside reality.”
Furthermore, she says, “listening has disappeared.” “What the other side says is not of interest. In Parliament, a fight is staged; in Justice, a partisan analysis is made, not of what is judged; in the Executive, public communication turns into propaganda and everything becomes a narrative, and in parties, identity is opposed to the other.” She adds the erosion of the Administration that “ceases to serve the citizen to serve the Government.” All this, in her opinion, “can only be reversed if there is awareness that words must be disarmed and dialogue and listening guidelines established.”
Canel insists on the importance of words, on how they can be used to distort the truth and cites as an example Sánchez’s phrase when he said: “I do not lie, I change my mind.” Or when he states: “The question is not whether I will continue, but how I will not continue.”
And she concludes: “When language deteriorates, Congress becomes a set; Justice, a faction; the Government, a campaign; parties, trenches; and citizens, increasingly angry spectators.”
The armed wing in Congress
Francina Armengol was the first piece Pedro Sánchez moved after assembling a majority willing to support his investiture. Positioned at the head of Congress, the third authority of the State has always performed her role attentive to the president’s needs, thus putting the Legislature, on multiple occasions, at the service of Moncloa. Under her mandate, clashes with opposition groups and especially with the Senate, the chamber dominated by the PP, which Sánchez despises and whose initiatives Armengol does everything possible to block, have proliferated.
THREE PILLARS OF SANCHISM
CÁNDIDO CONDE-PUMPIDO
THE GUARANTOR. He presides over the Constitutional Court and the opposition reproaches him for being the endorsement that adapts the Magna Carta to the Government’s needs.
ÁLVARO GARCÍA ORTIZ
THE LEAKER. Attorney General from 2022 to 2025 appointed by Sánchez. He left the position after being convicted by the Supreme Court for revealing secrets.
JOSÉ FÉLIX TEZANOS
THE SEER. At the head of the CIS, he sees what no one else appreciates. His polls always predict the overwhelming victory of his party, the PSOE.