With just hours until the director of the Spanish secret service will testify in the Congress about former king Juan Carlos I and with a judge investigating the first case during Spain's democracy against the king, speculation is mounting as to what would happen if Felipe were to divorce and/or abdicate over the scandal. Journalist Pilar Eyre has the first piece of the puzzle. She writes in Lecturas that, after the incident in Palma earlier this year between Letizia and Sofia, king Juan Carlos asked his son "Felipe, damn it, get divorced already! Where is this going?". According to Eyre, advisers stopped this, persuading the family that they have to wait until Leonor turns 18. This is because of the additional threat of a potential abdication, which would lead to Leonor becoming queen. That could lead to a constitutional crisis if the future queen Leonor I were still a minor, in which case she would require a regent.
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The regency would fall to Letizia, who would therefore be head of state, with the whole scandal that would entail, especially if she were divorced from the king. Before getting married, she had to renounce custody of any potential children in case of divorce, so perhaps she has also signed away the regency. In that case, the regent and head of state would be Elena de Borbó, Felipe's eldest sister or, ultimately, someone nominated by the Congress. The chance that it would all end in a republic seems more real than ever.
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Eyre also reveals a second scandal: Letizia is scared that she's also had phone conversations recorded which would harm the royal family. We've never seen Letizia's mobile, but she's got one. WhatsApp messages have been leaked which she sent to her yoga friend, Javier López-Madrid, caught up in a thousand corruption scandals. And En Blau has learnt of a third scandal: the Zarzuela palace is stopping the divorce because it's scared of Letizia. They think the queen is ungovernable, that she does her own thing, but that whilst she's the king's consort she's within the fold of the royal family and they can half control her. When they imagine a Letizia, divorced and pushed aside, they all shiver in sync. She could reveal all the family's secrets: the good, the bad and the ugly. That's stopping the divorce, for the moment.
Jorge Javier Vázquez on Twitter