Spain: Ignacio Camacho calls Pedro Sánchez's parliamentary maneuver a 'fraud of law'

Columnist Ignacio Camacho argues in ABC that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is closing his term with a "fraud of law" by attempting to validate in Congress's Permanent Committee a decree the Plenary had previously rejected. The article's thesis is that this maneuver is part of a government method based on evading parliamentary controls.

The columnist **Ignacio Camacho** writes in **ABC** an article titled "Cum embeleco de ley" in which he argues that **Pedro Sánchez** faces the end of his term with a fraudulent maneuver. The piece, published on October 7, 2026, does not limit itself to criticizing a specific decision: it builds a thesis about the president's method of government.

## The maneuver denounced by the article

The core of the text is the validation in Congress's Permanent Committee of a decree that the Plenary had previously rejected. Camacho qualifies that operation as a "fraud of law as big and visible as the Toledo Cathedral." His argument is that the Permanent Committee, an organ with reduced proportionality and provisional character, serves here to bypass the spirit of parliamentary rules.

The comparison used by the columnist is sports-related: winning the elimination match in the return leg with an ineligible lineup and a biased referee. It is not a criticism of the electoral result, but of the procedure. What is questioned is that a reduced organ can reverse what the Plenary decided.

## A method that comes from far away, according to the columnist

Camacho does not present the episode as an isolated case. He writes that the trick has accompanied Sánchez since he was a student, mentioning a plagiarism in the doctorate and two attempts at "election rigging" in the party. Already in Government, he describes a pattern: broken promises, twisted laws, evading Congress when it posed difficulties, and placing loyal people in key positions.

The article lists several concrete examples. He cites a vote he qualifies as fraudulent against his own colleagues, the presentation of legislative projects as party initiatives to bypass mandatory opinions, the failure to present budgets, and the use of a ministerial instruction to alter the census through a tortuous interpretation of the so-called "grandchildren law."

## The underlying thesis: power without checks

The columnist argues that Sánchez conceives power as a blank check to do whatever he pleases. Against the image of tactical skill, Camacho opposes that of a lack of scruples to secure positions of advantage. The distinction he traces is interesting: he does not believe that Sánchez has discovered cracks in the system, but that he is the only one who has dared to exploit them.

His predecessors, he argues, bypassed them for an elementary concept of democratic decency. The novelty would not lie in the existence of flaws in the legal order, but in their systematic use. The article mentions that there are still institutions, such as Justice, capable of resisting those tricks.

## What remains to come and the legacy left behind

Camacho anticipates more maneuvers by November 29. He writes that Sánchez will skirt the legal order from within or outside, and points to two facts he presents as unprecedented since the Transition: being the first president who suffers no strike and the first who calls one against the opposition through his flagship unions.

The article's closing points to a deeper damage than any specific maneuver. The final thesis is that perpetual adulteration has managed to make people doubt an electoral procedure that until today was recognized for its cleanliness. Whether he leaves or stays, Camacho writes, that will be his worst legacy: putting the very basis of the democratic regime under suspicion.

This is an opinion column, not verified information. The statements about intentions, methods, and consequences are the author's assessments.