Feijoo, together with other leading PP politicians, took part in a demonstration in the Spanish capital on Sunday, demanding the resignation of the government and the calling of new parliamentary elections. According to the electoral calendar, the next vote should take place only in 2027.
According to government sources, approximately 40,000 people took part in the rally. people; data provided by the organizers indicate that the attendance was twice as high.
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Who led the demonstration in Madrid?
How many people took part in the demonstration?
What did Alberto Nunez Feijoo suggest at the demonstration?
Why was Jose Luis Abalos arrested?
The Koldo affair
—Pedro Sanchez to prison! — chanted the crowd after Feijoo suggested that the prime minister should be put behind bars along with his former colleagues.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a decision to arrest Jose Luis Abalos, former Minister of Transport and a close associate of Sanchez, in connection with the high-profile corruption scandal regarding rigging tenders for protective masks during the Covid-19 pandemic. Abalos' associate, Koldo Garcia, from whom the “Koldo affair” was named, was also arrested.
A week earlier, Santos Cerdan, Sanchez's right-hand man in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), was released from custody after five months and was also accused of corruption.
The prime minister refuses to resign, claiming he knew nothing about the actions of his former colleagues, and the party immediately reacted after the matter came to light.
Leading PP politicians took part in Sunday's demonstration, including former prime ministers Mariano Rajoy and Jose Maria Aznar, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, head of the Community of Madrid, and Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, head of the Community of Madrid.
In all recent polls, the People's Party is ahead of the PSOE by several percentage points; third place goes to the radical right-wing group Vox, whose support in some polls reaches almost 20 percent.
Corruption is a constant problem in Spain. In 2018, one of the largest corruption scandals in the country's history, known as the Guertel scandal, contributed to the fall of the government of Mariano Rajoy from the PP, which marked the beginning of the PSOE government that has remained so far.
