The General Secretary of the People’s Party, Cuca Gamarra, at a press conference at the headquarters of the PP.A. Perez Meca (European press)
It is not easy for the PP to establish itself as a champion in the fight against corruption. The Mediator case has a potential strain on the PSOE, which the populace hopes to exploit ahead of next May’s regional and local elections. However, corruption is a slippery subject for the PP, which is haunted by the shadow of a history of deep corruption and several cases that remain unsolved. The most serious of the pending cases is the Kitchen case. Last week, the anti-corruption prosecutor requested 15 years in prison for top officials in the Interior Ministry of Mariano Rajoy’s government. Aware of these difficulties, the legislators did not foresee a major offensive in the case of Tito Berni – a corrupt network with an epicenter in the Canary Islands that focused on demanding commissions from businessmen, mainly in the livestock sector, and that for the moment has led to the expulsion of the PSOE of former MP Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo― although they will ask the PSOE for explanations and yesterday registered a request for a commission of inquiry in Congress. “Corruption problems lead to a general dissatisfaction of citizens towards politics,” confirm sources from the leadership of the PP.
The PP does not have all of the fact that in the mediator case a connection with the PP could also occur. Canary Islands PP President Manuel Domínguez admitted to meeting plot creator Marco Antonio Navarro Tacoronte for coffee near Parliament yesterday after being introduced by a journalist. Volksführung sources confirm that the leadership is “not the Gestapo” (the Nazi secret police) and therefore cannot know for sure if there is a black sheep in the PP, but that if there was, “everybody would be stuck remains holds its sail”.
Cuca Gamarra’s press conference this Wednesday announcing the registration of the Commission of Inquiry was a perfect example of the contradictions the PP faces when talking about corruption. The secretary-general described the Mediator case, which “embarrasses the whole of Spanish society”, in an affected tone, but tiptoed past the other corruption cases affecting her. Gamarra avoided showing the same denial of the kitchen case, despite the anti-corruption prosecutor’s recent request, and that EL PAÍS this week revealed the messages from interior and police commanders between 2015 and 2019, revealing the strategy of Ministry at the time of the PP to to investigate Podemos and pro-independence leaders, most of the time without court support. Instead, it dismissed the matter because “there is nothing new” and “it is not current” and because the case is “over a decade old.”
Feijóo’s number two also faced questions from journalists as to why the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, ate from the PP at a party event with the President of the Ibiza Council, Vicent Marí, on February 26, even though he was accused after the anti-corruption prosecutor had accused him of administrative subterfuge and influence-peddling. “It’s an administrative procedure as part of his job. You cannot use the same scale. It has nothing to do with one or the other,” Gamarra replied after adding that it was “very good” that Feijóo ate with him.
She also had to comment on the Mayor of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz (PP), who the Senate has given 15 days to account for her vast fortune, estimated at 12 million euros. The House of Lords wants to find out whether the councilwoman violated the Cortes Generales’ code of conduct by not disclosing all of her assets at the start of the latest legislature. She did so following the prosecution of her husband and stepson, who were arrested on the Costa del Sol in 2021 for alleged involvement in a drug trafficking and money laundering scheme. At the moment, Muñoz has the support of the PP, which confirmed her as a candidate in May. “The mayor of Marbella has no pending criminal proceedings,” said the Secretary General of the PP this Wednesday.
Therefore, the case of Mediator, or Tito Berni, nicknamed former Socialist MP Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, can be a double-edged sword for the PP, because corruption is not exactly a winning framework. In any case, the popular leadership assumes that the course of the controversy will last a maximum of ten days. The PP also has no particular interest in going far beyond this notion.
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