Macarena Olona, former secretary general of Vox in Congress, denounces that in recent years Vox has given almost 11 million euros of public money to the Disenso Foundation, of which Santiago Abascal is president, and to the company Tizona Comunicación, whose President Santiago Abascal is, has diverted owners are Kiko Méndez-Monasterio, personal advisor to the leader of the Ultra party, and Gabriel Ariza, son of Julio Ariza, patron of the party’s unofficial television channel, El Toro TV, formerly Intereconomía.
In statements to RNE, Olona emphasizes that “in four years, seven million euros flowed into a private foundation in which Santiago Abascal Conde was installed as president for life with his first and last name” – that is, as a private citizen, not in his position as president of Vox – and that “a private company 50% owned by Kiko Méndez-Monasterio and Gabriel Ariza has billed almost four million in five years and its only or main customer is Vox.”
All this, added the former Vox candidate for the presidency of the Junta de Andalucía, “reeks of corruption” and a political party whose income comes mainly from state subsidies “has a duty not only morally but also legally to explain , where “He invested every last euro of this public money,” he emphasizes. Faced with what he describes as “very serious signs,” Olona has called on his former party to publish Form 347, a declaration in which self-employed people and companies annually inform the tax office of all transactions with third parties at a higher amount. at 3,000 euros. In his opinion, this statement would clarify who benefited from the diverted funds.
Olona, who has just published a book in which he tells his life’s journey, including his time at Vox (I am Macarena. My life, my ideas, my path. La Esfera de los Libros, 2023), assures , that his former party “transformed the business of patriotism into an SA” through the “network of businesses it created around the political project”. He adds: “They said they were coming to put an end to the beach bars and they built the big beach bar.”
So far, Vox has refused to respond to the complaints of one of its most popular faces, claiming that its general secretary Ignacio Garriga “does not want to contribute to a science fiction story.” She challenged her former colleagues: “If I lie, they will file a lawsuit against me. If I tell the truth, they should take out the papers. If there is nothing to hide, we will see you in court.”
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In his book, Olona explains that Kiko Méndez-Monasterio is one of the most powerful men in the party due to his closeness to Abascal, although he does not belong to any leadership body and was not elected by anyone. And he remembers his surprise when, in 2022, the then adviser to the presidency of Andalusia and current general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, told him that Vox had demanded that the board award contracts to Julio Ariza’s companies in return for supporting the budgets of the PP government of Moreno Bonilla in the first legislative period.
Olona describes the machismo prevalent in the party – she claims a leader told her he avoided including women on teams “to avoid temptation” -; He tells how he was forced to withdraw from Congress an initiative to vaccinate people under 16 against various pathologies, including Covid; directed to vote against a proposal to ban therapies that treat homosexuality as a disease; or refused to put forward a “Nazi” proposal that linked Spanish nationality to “purity of blood.” As a form of self-criticism, he admits that he often acted with “excessive vehemence” and that he could become “the most extreme part of his own extreme.”
Bold binomial
Olona explains that he formed a perfectly coordinated duo in Congress with Speaker Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, and tells how the party apparatus tried to break this tandem after the vote on European funds in January 2021, thanks to the government on the abstention of the Ultra group. After an internal investigation, Kiko Méndez-Monasterio, Abascal’s right-hand man, told him that Iván had “betrayed” her. According to Olona, this is where the downfall of Espinosa de los Monteros, who had to resign from his position last August, began.
She had already left in July 2022. Olona attributes her departure to a chain of events following the elections in Andalusia, in which she did not achieve the expected result. First, the breach of the promise that Abascal had made to her in exchange for her resigning from her post as deputy and going to Andalusia to join the Political Action Committee (CAP), the Sanhedrin that regulates the daily life of Vox and could continue in work with the team that prepared the appeals to the Constitutional Court and also return as a candidate for Congress in this year’s parliamentary elections. In addition, there were leaks from the party apparatus that blamed her for the election failure; the ban on her traveling to the Andalusian provinces to support its members, or the imposition of prior censorship by Madrid on her interventions in the Andalusian Parliament, with the threat of dismissing her as speaker if she does not comply with orders. She admits that she wanted to become a regional senator, but assures that she couldn’t even bring it up because Abascal didn’t answer the phone; and admits that his health problems were the trigger, but not the actual reason, for him slamming the door on Vox.
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