The prosecutor of the piece of the taula case in which the alleged box B of Rita Barberá’s PP is being judged has stated today that this party “committed electoral fraud in the 2007, 2011 and, to a lesser extent, 2015 elections because “increased its budget for the elections using irregularly obtained money.” The PP had two current accounts according to the prosecutor, one “legal” and another in Sabadell that functioned as an opaque account or box B and that “was like Ali Baba’s cave, an account that was not subject to any type of control”
Along these lines, he has stated that the PP obtained “irregular” money in four different ways: from money contributed by foundations and municipal entities; of Valencian companies and a ghost company; of cash income that appears, for example, in the General Ledger of Laterne – a company that campaigned in the 2007 election -; and 500 euro bills that Grau gave to his former advisor Jesús Gordillo.
“Every act of corruption represents a great ethical and moral reproach because it is a bankruptcy of society and, when politicians present themselves in elections as paradigms of transparency and commit fraud in the elections, the reproach is greater.” This is how the Anti-Corruption prosecutor has begun his report for piece A of the Imelsa case and has insisted on electoral fraud of the municipal group of the PP of Valencia in 2007 and 2011. He has also placed the former vice mayor of the city Alfonso Grau and the former secretary of the PP in the Mari Carmen García Fuster City Council as the “cornerstone” of irregularities.
The prosecutor made this statement in the penultimate session of the trial for piece A of Imelsa, in relation to alleged irregular financing in the electoral campaigns of the PP of Valencia in 2007 and 2011 through donations and payments from companies. There are four defendants in this procedure: Grau; García Fuster; the former director of the Valencia Tourism Foundation, José Salinas; and the former mayor and former head of the Center for Strategies and Development (CEyD), Juan Eduardo Santón.
Regarding the 2015 campaign, which was initially investigated in the procedure for the crime of money laundering but was eventually archived by the Court, the prosecutor has only made reference to it to allege irregularities: “Both in the 2007 elections and in the 2011 election and 2015 the PP put into play a machinery to counteract the effect of the remaining political parties and started with a fundamentally economic advantage,” he said.
(((There will be an extension)))
