The unusual institutional bifurcation between the Congress and the Senate, which are on the verge of collision following the processing of the Amnesty law, progressed yesterday in the vote in the Lower House on the creation of a commission investigation of corruption in the purchase and sale of health equipment during the pandemic, in which the PP abstained with the argument that where it can develop in a “truly independent” way is in the Upper House, in which the popular have an absolute majority.
The person in charge of defending this position, which strains the seams of the Spanish bicameral system like never before, was the popular deputy Macarena Montesinos, who conditioned the support of the PP on the termination of the president of the Congress, at the target since the outbreak of Koldo case, which investigates, among other derivatives, the purchase of masks in the plot by the Balearic government when it was chaired by Francina Armengol.
Without getting what it asked for, the PP abstained, but the commission, requested by the PSOE, went ahead with the votes of the investiture, to which were added those of Coalició Canària and UPN and that of José Luis Ábalos, who appears as a non-affiliated deputy since his expulsion from the socialist group following the arrest of Koldo García, who had been his adviser at the Ministry of Transport, for his involvement in the plot.
Montesinos listed the cases of the “amalgam of corruption” in which the PP sees the PSOE embroiled, from the mysterious suitcases that the Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, allegedly vaporized in Barajas to the actions of “the lady of the EROs” , which is how María Jesús Montero named her, when the current first vice-president and Minister of Finance was councilor of the Board of Andalusia, passing through the allocations of the Ministry of Health during the Salvador Illa stage to companies that did not have nothing to do with the bouquet and “hidden profits” obtained by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, thanks, as the PP deputy said, to the contacts of his wife, Begoña Gómez, with the managers of Air Europa, the airline rescued with public money. “Everything stays at home”, he said.
Be that as it may, when the session ended, the commission was set up, which, after that of the Senate and the Balearic Parliament, will be the third that will try to shed light on what happened during the hardest time of the pandemic, when unscrupulous commissioners profited from their mediation in the purchase and sale of masks, in some cases defective.
But the deputies will not focus only on the Koldo case, but also on the alleged scams of other contracts linked to the Community of Madrid or the City Council of the capital, “without double standards, with absolute transparency and with conviction, whoever falls”, announced the socialist Esther Peña. “This country needs answers to make the relevant changes and that the shameless do not sneak in through the back door again or that no one or no relative opens the door for them”, he said after dedicating a large part of his speech to the alleged tax fraud by the partner of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Sumar, through the mouth of Aina Vidal, of the commons, recognized that the commission is “necessary”, but asked to “go further” and not only “punish the corrupt”, but try “to never return to to pass”.
The PNB defends clarifying everything and EH Bildu sees “a magnificent opportunity” to open the institutions to transparency, and both voted, like Junts and ERC, in favor of the commission, which will last four months, while the 33 Vox deputies were the only ones who opposed it.
