Murphy’s Law is an unwritten, although widely accepted, rule that maintains that “if something can go wrong, it will go wrong”, and is comparable to the popular saying that “a weak dog, everything is fleas.” Let’s see: a minority government, unpredictable parliamentary partners, an amnesty law not without controversy and, suddenly, boom! A case of corruption. Either it’s Murphy’s Law or Pedro Sánchez has run out of ‘baraka’. When everyone was pointing out that criminal oblivion would end the coalition government, a judge ordered the arrest, and subsequent release, of 20 people, including the advisor of a former minister and former Secretary of Organization of the party for alleged bites on the purchase of masks during the worst of the pandemic.
And the shock wave of that neutron bomb seems to have left the socialists without the ability to react or strategy with which to get back on track: “We don’t have a plan, there is no reaction. Not even from the boss. It is not easy when we navigate in a sea of hoaxes, misrepresentations and systematic efforts to relate matters that have nothing to do with each other, or the fan turns on to put the entire Government under suspicion.”
The person who speaks like this is a minister about the effects of the shock caused by the “Koldo case” and the transfer of former minister Ábalos to the Mixed Group for his ‘in surveillance’ responsibility in the alleged collection of bribes.
Pedro Sánchez is not one of those Prime Ministers in whom expressiveness, or the lack thereof, conveys his state of mind. And much less let him reveal what’s going on in his head. Beyond the fact that he is “disconcerted and worried,” as admitted by those who deal with him daily, no one is capable of clearing up a reaction with which to resume the course of a legislature that is already uncertain and that until now had the amnesty law almost exclusively at the center of the public conversation.
“In the end, we have to give this time because between what we read in a certain press and what the case turns out to be when the judicial investigation concludes, it may all end in the bribes that an advisor received,” emphasizes a socialist who also does not rule out that the scandal deteriorates the relationship with Podemos and makes Sumar’s deputies uncomfortable.
In fact, already this Friday the vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, who reappeared on the public scene after her tour of the US, announced that she will convene her emergency group to bring a battery of anti-corruption measures to the Congress of Deputies. . Among them, the creation of a prevention council against corruption. Díaz rules out that the ‘Koldo case’ could affect the legislature because “Pedro Sánchez is a politician of race and grows in the face of adversity”, although he recognizes that it is “a very serious situation” in which “the and you more” with which the PSOE tries to avoid the shock by remembering the corruption that the PP accumulates and the difference in the responses that each party gives.
Sánchez’s first crisis of authority
In the socialist part of the Government they prefer not to value the statements of Díaz, whom they recognize the ability “to want to be the parsley of all the sauces”, and prefer to defend themselves for the moment only with the immediate reaction that the PSOE launched as soon as it had knowledge of the cause: demand the deputy’s certificate from the former Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, who, with his move to the Mixed Group, has led to the first major crisis of authority that Sánchez has had in the PSOE since he regained the reins of the party in 2017 .
“There was never a decision to close ranks with Ábalos. We realized that we had to act immediately and the report was required within 48 hours, even though he was not charged nor had he been called to testify,” they justify those around the president. But now in La Moncloa they even defend that the more days that pass and the more known about the ‘Koldo case’, the more sense the ultimatum that was given to the former minister to hand over his parliamentary certificate makes.
So much so that there are already those who do not rule out that the person who was also Secretary of Organization of the party will finally be charged. “Now we are – says another member of the Government – in the retail phase, as we can see in the information that seeks to establish a relationship between this case and the friendship between the wife of the President of the Government and the son of the founder of Air Europa and Globalia, Juan Hidalgo. “It’s all garbage spread with bad faith and clear intentionality, but the time will come when the judge puts together what he has to put together and gets to the bottom of the matter.”
At the moment, another interlocutor maintains that “either the evidence is not very solid or the crimes that can be charged are not so serious because, otherwise, the judge would not have released the 20 detainees without bail, and charged only eight of them.”
Be that as it may, the fact is that the Government and the socialist federal headquarters assume the coup and only take refuge in the “strength and immediacy” of the response as soon as the arrest of the people supposedly linked to the business plot became known. which belonged to Koldo García. And this was done to mark the difference with the PP in the face of other cases of corruption such as those detected in the City Council and the Community of Madrid, both governed by the right, or those that ended the Government of Mariano Rajoy, when the ‘popular’ They destroyed evidence to impede the work of justice.
This in addition to the fact that Ábalos’ departure from the party served as a firewall.
Hiring controls were suspended
What the PSOE does not consider in any case is to ask for the resignation of the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, who during her time as president of the Balearic Islands bought the masks offered by the company Soluciones de Gestión – linked to Koldo García – and without a written contract. before or after.
The Civil Guard suspects that the acquisition of 1.4 million of this type of medical equipment at a cost of 3.7 million euros was “pre-awarded” because “the provision of the service” was carried out “before its formalization,” something that happened the same in different public administrations since in the face of the national emergency the usual controls on public procurement were suspended.
“The one who has to give explanations is Feijóo’s party, and the one who has to resign is the current president of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, if, as the investigation studies, she gave in to the requests of the investigated company and made the claim initiated by him expire. previous Balearic Government”, they add from the PSOE to accuse the PP of covering up its involvement in the plot.
The PSOE hopes that the investigative commission that will be established in Congress to examine the contracting of health supplies in all public administrations will shed light on all this and put everyone in front of the mirror of their own actions. And, although they do not hide the dimension of the problem and the damage it can do to the Executive, they are convinced that with regard to the contracts of the Government of Spain, they were all audited and validated by the General Intervention of the State and by the Court of counts.
“Spain is not the Congo,” they ironically. And the same record applies to respond to the investigation commission that the PP will promote in the Senate only to supervise the hiring of the Government of Spain: “If there is a match at the Bernabéu, people do not go to the Puerta Bonita Sports Center,” old Carabanchel dog track.
Now, they only trust that time passes, the judicial investigation advances and the legislative agenda allows them to turn the page as soon as possible because what they do not accept is that the legislature is at risk because their current partners will withdraw parliamentary support. At the moment, they claim to have not detected signs of distrust, among other reasons, because “they know that the alternative to corruption can never be the PP with the history it has accumulated in this regard.”
All this four days before the deadline for submitting amendments to the amnesty law expires and without any news on whether Junts and the PSOE have approached positions on the text. The independentists intend to include all types of terrorism and the socialists are only willing to include technical modifications. There are already ministers who say that before accepting new demands from Puigdemont, it would be best if the text did not go ahead for the moment.
Very nice, the truth is, it doesn’t look good for Sánchez and the Government, unless in a new twist of the script the president finds a way to demonstrate that Murphy’s Law is avoidable, and that it is a powerful tool with which to overcome all types of challenges. It will be seen…
Source: www.eldiario.es
