Felipe González calls on Sánchez to resign or call elections

González demands Sánchez resign or call elections after the Koldo case

Should Pedro Sánchez resign or call an election? That is the question hanging over Spanish politics trinc the verdict in the Koldo case. Former prime minister Felipe González was blunt: "resign or call elections", at an event in Toledo alongside Emiliano García-Page. The ruling sentencing José Luis Ábalos to 24 years in prison and his former adviser Koldo García to 19 has peine the debate over the government's legitimacy.

Page went further, comparing the situation to the Gürtel case, which in 2018 brought down Mariano Rajoy through a no-confidence vote. The comparison is uncomfortable for the PSOE (Spain's Socialist Party): back then, the argument was that a corruption conviction made it untenable to keep the government in office. Now, with a far harsher sentence in a case involving senior party officials, Sánchez's government is clinging to parliamentary arithmetic.

But the issue goes beyond the numbers. Political legitimacy is not measured in seats alone. Every day Sánchez clings to power while a former PSOE minister goes to prison, the official narrative weakens. Internal opposition no longer comes only from the PP; it comes from the party's own founder.

The underlying problem is that Spain has no effective mechanisms for removing a leader. A no-confidence motion is too heavy an instrument, and voluntary resignation is a gesture few politicians are willing to make. Sánchez, who has shown an almost unlimited capacity for endurance, will probably choose to hang on. As someone once said: asking Sánchez to resign is like asking an addict to quit. Very difficult, if not impossible.