Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) has pulled a Temptation Island-themed video attacking the country’s socialist prime minister, his wife and his colleagues after the short, AI-generated film provoked an embarrassing diplomatic incident with the Dominican Republic.
The 30-second video – which aimed to piggyback on the popularity of the Spanish reality TV show – was the PP’s latest attempt to capitalise on the corruption allegations surrounding both Pedro Sánchez’s administration and his wife, Begoña Gómez.
A bare-chested image of Sánchez featured in the video, as did a swimsuit-clad Gómez and a mock-up of the former transport minister, José Luis Ábalos, holding a cocktail.
Gómez is being investigated by a judge after a self-styled trade union with far-right links accused her of using her influence as the wife of the prime minister to secure sponsors for a university masters’ degree course that she ran. Ábalos, meanwhile, was suspended by his party in February last year after refusing to resign when his assistant was accused of taking bribes to facilitate mask contracts during the Covid pandemic. Both Gómez and Ábalos have denied any wrongdoing.
Although intended as a domestic jab, the video, posted on the PP’s social media channels, incurred the wrath of the Dominican Republic, where Temptation Island is filmed. The small Caribbean nation, which shares the island of Hispaniola with neighbouring Haiti, was angered by the juxtaposition of its flag and a map of the country with the message: “Once Temptation Island has finished, the new adventures on Corruption Island begin.” The video also made mention of “corruption, lust, ambition and lies”.
On Thursday, the Dominican Republic’s foreign ministry posted an angry message on X, decrying what it called “the malicious and incomprehensible attack” on the country and stressing that it had made great strides in strengthening the rule of law and transparency.
“The exploitation of the country’s image and the distortion of its national symbols is unacceptable – even more so when it’s for domestic Spanish political ends,” it said.
On Thursday evening, the PP pulled the video, which, it said, had been solely intended to “denounce the corruption of Pedro Sánchez’s government”, adding: “There was never, at any time, any intention to damage the image of the Dominican Republic, a country with a long tradition of friendship and closeness to Spain.”
Despite being the butt of the backfiring stunt, Sánchez also apologised. Speaking after Thursday’s summit of European leaders in Brussels, the prime minister said that he had been too busy to watch the video but still wanted to say sorry for its content.
“All I can say is that I’m deeply embarrassed and I apologise sincerely on behalf of Spain,” he said. “[The Dominican Republic] is a friend and an extraordinary country with which we have cultural and historical links.”
The video was released in the same week that the former PP prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, appeared before congress to deny any knowledge of a shadowy political and police plot to target and undermine both Catalan independence leaders and senior figures in the leftwing Podemos party. Rajoy, who was prime minister from 2011 to 2018, lost power after Sánchez used a motion of no-confidence to unseat him after a string of damaging corruption cases involving PP members.
