The president and the penthouse: how Madrid’s government spent €6.3m on a temporary ‘office’

Saga surrounding purchase for outspoken rightwing regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso refuses to go away

T he outspoken rightwing leader of the Madrid region is under growing pressure to explain why her government spent €6.3m (£5.4m) on a residential penthouse purportedly to serve as a temporary workspace while her offices were being renovated.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a prominent member of Spain’s opposition conservative People’s party (PP), has been the president of the Madrid region since 2019.

In that time, she has forged a reputation as a politician who prides herself on speaking her mind – and on being a thorn in the side of the country’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, whose family and government have been mired in graft allegations for the past two years.

Although Ayuso has frequently accused Sánchez and his Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) of being corrupt , she and her administration now face growing calls to provide a transparent explanation for the purchase of the penthouse.

El País reported at the end of July that the Madrid regional government had bought the penthouse in the well-heeled Chamberí neighbourhood of the Spanish capital in April. A spokesperson told the paper the property had been acquired for Ayuso to use while her offices in the Real Casa de Correos – the seat of the regional government – were being renovated. The spokesperson did not respond to questions about the price of the flat, nor whether Ayuso intended to live in it.

It later emerged that the flat cost €6.3m and planning laws meant it could only be used for residential purposes, not as an office. El País reported this week that Ayuso’s government had stipulated that the property it wanted should be “between 250 and 400 square metres and have a large terrace” – the latter being an odd requirement for an office.

The Madrid president lives with her partner, Alberto González Amador, a businessman who recently put two of the flats they have shared up for sale. González Amador is awaiting trial on charges of tax fraud and falsifying documents. He denies the charges.

Ayuso initially dismissed the revelations as a “smear campaign” , insisting the penthouse was not bought for her to live in but as a venue for “institutional meetings”. She also said she hadn’t had “the faintest idea” about the purchase.

The regional government has subsequently announced that the flat will be sold and the proceeds donated to the victims of this summer’s wildfires near Madrid.

Ayuso recently told reporters she considered the matter closed, saying in her trademark colourful language: “ Está en venta, chao pescao ”, which roughly translates as: “It’s up for sale, so see you later, alligator”.

The soundbite has elicited comparisons with the time she was caught in congress describing Sánchez as a “hijo de puta” (“son of a bitch”), only to claim she had been misheard and had actually said: “Me gusta la fruta” (“I like fruit”). It has become one of her most well-known pronouncements, along with her electoral slogan of “communism or freedom” .

However, the row over the flat refuses to die down.