“When there is nothing to hide, there is no time to lose”, highlighted the government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, in response to Pedro Sánchez’s reaction to nip in the bud any suspicion of corrupt practices that dot the PSOE. In Moncloa, they highlight that action has been taken “withering away” in the face of the alleged involvement of Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo in the so-called Mediator case uncovered in the Canary Islands, who was required to be a deputy in Congress and was expelled from the PSOE even before there is any final judicial decision on the matter. The spokesperson for the Executive, straight away, has focused on the “double yardstick” that she has attributed to the Popular Party.
“It is an absolute shame”, they assume in the Government and in the leadership of the PSOE in the face of the handling and behavior that the judicial investigation is revealing about this already former socialist deputy, known as Tito Berni. “Of course, it doesn’t do us any good, on the contrary,” they admit, just two months before the next municipal and regional elections. But they trust that it is an isolated case, and that the stain on the socialist parliamentary group does not continue to spread. Although without being able to put his hand in the fire for nothing. Not for anyone. “For now, there is no one else identified,” they point out.
In the Government they already took it for granted, in any case, that the PP “is going to try to hypertrophy this case to the limit.” And they cling to the forceful reaction of Pedro Sánchez, which was executed by the organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, to demand Tito Berni’s deputy act and expel him from the party. “When you have nothing to hide, you act fast. And in this case, action has been taken very quickly”, they emphasize in Moncloa. “Unlike others,” they warn, looking directly at the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The Socialists thus point to Feijóo, whom they accuse of “has not lifted a finger” in three cases that the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating and that dot the PP. They thus point to the accusation of former minister Jorge Fernández Díaz for the Kitchen case; to the mayoress of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz, who recall that she is still a senator despite not yet having proven an alleged increase in assets of 12 million euros; or the president of the Eivissa Council, Vicent Marí, for another alleged case of corruption. The circumstance occurs, as highlighted in Ferraz, that Feijóo himself had dinner this Sunday with Marí, despite being accused of prevarication. “Very not exemplary conduct”, stand out in Moncloa, such as that of the brother of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who signed contracts with the regional administration with high benefits in the midst of a pandemic and before which Pedro Sánchez himself settled yesterday: “ We tackle corruption and we don’t cover it up.”
“Zero tolerance”, insisted the government spokesperson, at the slightest suspicion of corruption. Isabel Rodríguez has once again recalled that, in the case of Ayuso’s brother, the PP “covered up corruption”, and chose Feijóo as leader, after ousting Pablo Casado. “The Government is acting forcefully in the fight against corruption, but in the PP they have a very different yardstick,” she has reproached. And in the Executive they underline the determination of Pedro Sánchez in this regard. With a compelling argument: “The corruption of the PP was the trigger for the motion of no confidence in 2018.” Just the one that took the leader of the PSOE to Moncloa.
