In the struggle between the PSOE and the PP to organize their respective forces in Congress as a counterweight to the Senate, and vice versa, yesterday was the turn of the Socialists, who maneuvered together with their investiture partners to appoint the deputy from Alicante Alejandro Soler Mur as president of the commission that will investigate in the Lower House “contracting processes for the acquisition of health equipment by public administrations during the pandemic”.
So he was appointed, Soler Mur established a deadline of one week for the parties to present their proposals for witnesses. But, given what each revealed yesterday, there will be hardly any surprises.
The PSOE – as confirmed by Sumar with its intention to call both Isabel Díaz Ayuso and her partner, Alberto González – to testify – wants the congressional commission to investigate the purchases made by all the administrations, including those presided over by the PP , such as the Community of Madrid. Contrary to what was arranged on Monday by the popular people in the Senate, where they used their absolute majority to reduce the inquiries into the contracts of Koldo García, former advisor to former minister José Luis Ábalos. Especially those signed with the Balearic government during the period of Francina Armengol, today president of the Congress.
Aware of its numerical inferiority in the Lower House, the PP counterattacked by agreeing with Vox the starting positions corresponding to these two groups at the committee table. Specifically, those of second vice-president and second secretary. So that the two positions will be held by deputies elected by the Balearic Islands.
A whole declaration of intentions from the PP to, to the extent of its possibilities, take advantage of the opportunities that may arise to reposition the focus of the commission on the contracts signed by Armengol within the Koldo case.
This stubbornness of the PP in trying to bring down the president of the Congress was answered by the Spanish Government. Specifically from the mouth of Sumar’s spokesman, Íñigo Errejón, who advanced the intention to cite his partner: “Quirón is the best client of the Government privatizing public health in Madrid. It turns out that the company that gets rich with the privatization that Ayuso applies then makes his partner get rich. For us, it is quite clear that there are signs here that privatization and corruption go hand in hand”, he argued.
From there, nothing more. Both the PSOE and its partners chose not to reveal the rest of the participants. Although Errejón, yes, claimed “restraint” to all of them to leave aside the charges that do not appear in ongoing judicial matters. As is the case with both the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whose names appear in some of the cross-sections of the PP and the PSOE.
In this context, and with Sánchez on an official trip to the Middle East, the control session of the Spanish Government in the Senate focused on vice-presidents Teresa Ribera and Yolanda Díaz and several ministers, who left in the wake of the attempt by PP senators to focus the debate on the Koldo case.
In a less tense atmosphere than other times, for the PP it turned out to be a somewhat decaffeinated session, not only because of the absence of the president, but also because some members of the Spanish Government – Vice President María Jesús Montero and ministers Pilar Alegría and Óscar Puente – they alleged schedule problems to postpone their appearance, which led the opposition to point out that the Executive has “panicked” seeing that Koldo García is “beginning to discover the cake”, with reference to the recent information and interviews. They have “run away”, PP sources criticized.
“This is an outrageous decision that shows clearly and cleanly what is the attitude of Sánchez and his circle towards the plot that threatens him”, they indicated before the debate, in which popular senator Francisco Bernabé denounced the “pestilence” of a corruption for which he accused Sánchez as being most responsible. “What miserable words!” retorted Minister Félix Bolaños, who asked him to stop “muddling” politics.
