A large majority of Spaniards give more credence to the testimony given Thursday before the judge by businessman Víctor de Aldama, mastermind of the project Koldo case, that to the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez.
He 65.2% of Spaniards think Aldama “tells the truth” by implicating Pedro Sánchez and several of his ministers in the corruption plots of the Koldo affairaccording to the latest survey prepared by SocioMétrica for EL ESPAÑOL.
He 43.9% think Sánchez should resign for appointing José Luis Ábalos as Minister of Transport, in whose shadow the corruption plot grew and spread to other ministries.
And 29.1% say Sánchez should leave, only if it is proven that other high-ranking government officials also collected bribes.
Among PSOE voters, 46.6% say Sánchez should under no circumstances resign because of this scandal. But one in four (24.5%) believe they should do so for appointing Ábalos, and only 28.9% if the payment of bribes to other members of the government is proven.
After spending a month in prison, Víctor de Aldama appeared before National Court judge Ismael Moreno on Thursday and confessed to paying bribes to the former minister. Jose Luis Abalos (650,000 euros), to his advisor Koldo Garcia (250,000), to the current organizational secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdan (15,000 euros), and the vice-president’s chief of staff Maria Jesus Montero (25,000).
According to the survey, 59.3% of PSOE voters believe that Aldama is lying, but one in three (32%) gives credibility to his testimony. The vast majority of PP voters (97%), Vox (92.1%) and 80.2% of those who abstained in the last legislative elections believe that Aldama is telling the truth.
But this corruption scandal which affects several ministries also has repercussions on the electorate of the nationalist and independence parties (ERC, PNV, Bildu, Junts and Canarian Coalition) who supported Sánchez’s inauguration: 47.5% of their voters believe that Aldama is telling the truth, compared to 42.1% who do not believe his testimony.
During his recent trip to India, on October 27, President Pedro Sánchez assured a group of journalists that he had never exchanged a word with Víctor de Aldama, “neither in a meeting nor in a conversation”.
He said this a few hours after the photo he took with Aldama in a dressing room at the Teatro Latina on February 3, 2019 was revealed, after the presentation of Pepú Hernández as PSOE candidate for mayor of Madrid.
On the other hand, Aldama assured the judge that this photo, taken by Koldo García, was in no way a coincidence and that Sánchez had told him: “Thanks for what you do, keep me posted“.
61.3% of those surveyed (including 30.8% of PSOE voters) give credibility to Aldama’s story, while only 26.3% believe Sánchez’s version, according to which he did not never spoke a word with the businessman.
During his testimony before the judge, Aldama claimed to have paid 650,000 euros in cash to former minister Ábalos (of this figure, 250,000 for having provided him with contracts for the sale of masks to different ministries during the pandemic), in addition to having provided him with an apartment in the Plaza de España for his girlfriend, Jessicaand a chalet in Cádiz for your vacation. Koldo García, then advisor to Ábalos, reportedly received an additional 250,000 euros.
Again, 70.2% of those surveyed give credibility to this claim by Aldama, while one in five (19.9%) do not believe it.
Significantly, the image of Ábalos as a corrupt politician is also starting to infiltrate among socialist voters: almost half (49.7%) assume that Ábalos and Koldo collected bribes, versus 34.7% who deny it.
On the other hand, the majority of voters in Sumar (45.7%) and Podemos (71.6%) consider it unlikely that Ábalos and his advisor could engage in these corrupt practices.
Víctor de Aldama also assured the judge that he had paid a mouthful of 15,000 euross to the current organizational secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, in a bar located in front of Ferraz’s headquarters, using Koldo as an intermediary.
62.3% of those surveyed (and even more strikingly, 38.4% of socialist voters) once again believe that Aldama is telling the truth. Against 30.1% who do not believe this accusation.
The result is similar to another statement made before the judge by Víctor de Aldama, who claims that paid an additional 25,000 euros of commission to the chief of staff of Vice-President María Jesús Montero, in exchange for the postponement by the tax administration of the debt of one of his companies.
60.4% believe this statement (including one in three socialist voters) and a similar percentage, 59.7%, are convinced that María Jesús Montero must have known about this treatment.
In accordance with the criteria of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the judge provisionally released Aldama after hearing his statement, giving credibility to his testimony and considering that he collaborates with Justice. But the accusations he made must now be proven, either by presenting new evidence or by analyzing the documents and electronic devices that the UCO seized from him at the time of his arrest.
43.8% of those surveyed by SocioMétrica consider that the businessman will be able to prove all these accusations, while 30% believe that he will only be able to prove the payments to Ábalos and Koldo.
Once again, what socialist voters think is relevant: 27.3% think Aldama will be able to prove all his accusations, and 41.4% fear he will at least prove the bribes paid to Ábalos and his advisor.
Only 26.4% of PSOE voters are convinced that There is no evidence of these payments.as stated by Vice President María Jesús Montero.
Technical sheet
The study was carried out by the company SocioMétrica between November 22 and 23, 2024 through 1,760 random interviews extracted from its own panel of n=10,000 individuals representative of all Spanish socio-demographic segments.
The final results were finely adjusted using a weighting variable that takes into account gender, age, province and electoral memory during the last three elections.
Maximum error: 3% (SocioMétrica’s average deviation in voting in gen23 was 1.1% and in eu24 was 0.8%). No confidence level is applicable as this is non-probability sampling.
Study director: Gonzalo Adán. Doctor in political psychology and professor of psychometrics and social research techniques. SocioMétrica is a member of Insights + Analytics Spain.
