The murky tripijocs that the judicial investigation attributes to Koldo García represent, beyond the adventures of Tito Berni, the first major scandal of alleged corruption that splashes the flag of exemplarity and cleanliness that Pedro Sánchez flies. For this reason, the order of the president of the Spanish Government and leader of the PSOE has been definitive: “Whoever falls”.
The former minister José Luis Ábalos has already fallen – despite having taken refuge with his seat in the mixed group of Congress – but Sánchez’s mandate remains unchanged. And yesterday the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, forcefully reformulated it: “We want everything to be known and whoever has to pay, to pay”.
La Moncloa and Ferraz are trying to ensure that the firewall erected with the departure of Ábalos is not overwhelmed, despite the relentless offensive deployed by the Popular Party to extend the implications of the Koldo case to other ministers and leaders of the PSOE.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s formation focuses on the target of its offensive, first of all, the current president of the Congress, the socialist Francina Armengol, who is already demanding her immediate resignation. The argument of the PP is that the third authority of the State “cannot be under suspicion” for the investigations of the Koldo case.
And the PSOE is trying to build a very thick containment wall to protect Armengol, precisely, showing its face and not hiding to try to avoid the political backlash for the scam in the purchase of masks during the pandemic to this alleged corruption plot during her term as president of the Balearic Islands.
Total transparency is the order that comes from above. And the leadership of the PSOE is beginning to open the door for Armengol to appear in the commission of inquiry they are promoting to Congress, as the spokeswoman for the federal executive, Esther Peña, emphasized.
“There is no member of the PSOE who is not willing to give all the explanations that are necessary, where they are necessary”, they warn Ferraz.
The first vice-president of the Government and deputy general secretary of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero, defended that Armengol, as Balearic president, “scrupulously followed the procedure” and demanded the reinstatement of the purchased masks, “because she believed that the quality was not corresponded with the award”, and he attributed the responsibility to the current president of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, of the PP.
Other leaders of the PSOE summarize the case for which the PP claims the head of Armengol as follows: “A correct contract made by officials and a refund request that the PP let expire”.
And since the best defense is a good attack, the PSOE is now trying to direct the shot against the PP, against the number two of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Miguel Tellado, and against the current president of the islands, Marga Prohens.
“The indications in the summary point to the fact that the PP must give urgent explanations”, they assure the PSOE. Tellado, Prohens, Jacobo Pombo, a certain “Alberto”… “There are many questions in the air, and those who pointed the finger, now that we know more details of the summary, are being pointed at themselves”, they warn Ferraz “How bad is the overacting in politics”, they criticize.
“So the PP has had names in the summary, like that of Tellado or Pombo, the nerves have started and, if it was still possible, more slander against people who are not recorded in any judicial investigation”, they allege.
To begin with, the PSOE leadership points out that Tellado, spokesperson of the PP in Congress, with whom the summary considers that KoldoGarcía boasted of having contacted to stop the claim of the Balearic executive for the sale of these masks that did not correspond with the contracted parties, will have to appear before this commission of inquiry.
The PSOE justifies this demand for Tellado to explain “why his name appears in the summary of the open case for the alleged collection of illegal commissions for the purchase of masks during the pandemic”. “According to what we know, it follows that the corrupt plot was looking for an intermediary to intercede before the Government of the Balearic Islands, formed by PP and Vox, so that the claim against the companies involved that the previous government made was forgotten in a drawer”, they say to the PSOE.
Tellado, they point out, would have been, presumably, the one elected “to convince the Balearic Government of the PP and Vox and that that claim will never prosper”. how it happened “Despite being warned of the claim by the previous administration, the Government of the Balearic Islands of the PP and Vox let time pass until the claim became ineffective. This caused that the money paid for a batch of masks that did not correspond to the requested order could not be recovered”, say the socialists. And they also direct their suspicions towards the current Balearic administration: “The Government of Prohens must give many explanations, and confirm or deny whether it received orders from Tellado so that claim would put the sleep of the righteous to sleep”.
