Former PSOE ministers call for early elections and the “renewal” of the party.

Five former ministers of the PSOE and over a hundred personalities from politics, culture, and journalism publicly released a manifesto this Saturday calling for an “ethical regeneration” within the PSOE and an “urgent” call for elections following the recent corruption scandals affecting the socialist party.

“The succession of the last two Secretaries of Organization involved in corrupt schemes throughout the current General Secretariat, the total subservience of the current executive, the absence of critical currents being silenced, the opacity, and the prevailing cesarism, detach the current PSOE from the historical party with broad social bases and majorities that supported our architecture as a state and accompanied the reformist and European modernization of Spain,” the former ministers Jordi Sevilla, Virgilio Zapatero, Julián García Vargas, César Antonio Molina, and Javier Sáenz de Cosculluela state in the text.

They express “special concern over the repeated attempts to undermine judicial independence and the pressures being exerted on the oversight and control bodies regarding corruption, such as the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard (UCO),” as well as the “seriousness” of judicial reform. However, the signatories also emphasize the PSOE’s “historic commitment” to “democratic values, equal rights, and social and economic progress.” Qualities that make the party essential for “leading the social, ethical, and political reconstruction that the country needs.”

The manifesto continues with the signers insisting that “in this crossroads” the citizens must be heard and urgently calls for general elections. “Social democracy must lead this process with exemplarity, offering a horizon of hope and an unwavering commitment to the Spanish Constitution, democratic quality, social justice, effectiveness of public policies, accountability, and the defense of the rights and freedoms of all,” the text concludes, also signed by two former socialist presidents of the Senate (Juan José Laborda and Javier Rojo), former attorney general Eligio Hernández, philosopher Fernando Savater, and journalist Juan Luis Cebrián.