The Government and the PSOE continue to avoid explanations for the “Ábalos case” clinging to one argument: the “forcefulness” with which they acted against the former Secretary of Organization of the party and Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of the Executive. To this end, they state that just a few days after the first information that compromised his right-hand man, Koldo García, emerged, Ferraz acted decisively, opening an expulsion file from the PSOE and demanding the delivery of the deputy’s certificate, which in the end did not occur. happened and ended with Ábalos on the Mixed Group bench after kicking him out of the Socialist Parliamentary Group.
However, there is still a problem to be resolved. The expulsion file does not have a resolution as immediate as its opening and the process is guaranteed, in terms of the possibility of presenting allegations by the expelled person. Ábalos is running out of deadlines and has already asked twice – the last one at the beginning of this month of October – to be reinstated in the party. However, the investigation that is progressing in parallel to the internal process has produced new data of such force that the PSOE already anticipates that the expulsion will eventually materialize. Firstly, because the departure of Ábalos is presented as a sign of exemplary nature and transparency against corruption and, secondly, because they understand that any allegation made by the former Secretary of Organization has become outdated, once the report of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) and which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has adopted and which places him as the “head” of the “criminal plot.” The former Minister of Transport is on the verge of indictment.
Chronology of an expulsion
The internal process against Ábalos began in February, a few days after the arrest of his advisor in the Ministry of Transportation Koldo García. At that time, the PSOE demanded that he hand over his membership certificate and when he refused, they expelled him from the Socialist Parliamentary Group and opened a file of precautionary suspension of his militancy. The file continued its course for several months and was reactivated in September after the summer break, after Ábalos himself demanded that Ferraz reinstate him and close his case, which he considered “expired”, since several months had passed “paralyzed”. “, without carrying out new procedures, as he protested.
From that moment on, the matter came to life again and the PSOE leadership responded to its former leader, giving him a period of five days to send all the relevant documentation for his defense. Ábalos responded within the deadline, specifically on October 7, alleging that he had not committed any offense included in the party’s statutes and regulations and again demanding that his expulsion file be archived and all his rights as a member be restored. In his letter, addressed to the Organization Secretariat of Santos Cerdán, he alleged that the deadline given to him to submit his minutes was not respected and he rejected the charges attributed to him, such as acting against an agreement agreed upon by the party organs or abandoning the charge without prior authorization.
The UCO changes everything
However, just a few days later, on Thursday, October 10, a UCO report was made public that left the former minister on the brink of judicial indictment, attributing to him a “relevant and responsible role” in the so-called “Koldo case.” . The Civil Guard investigators focused on his relationship with Koldo García and with Víctor de Aldama, the alleged commission agent who is currently in preventive detention for another case related to hydrocarbons and pointed out that the former minister’s relationship with the “criminal organization.” Furthermore, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office was also in favor of investigating him, pointing out that “it is difficult to understand the operation” carried out by Koldo García and Aldama “without the participation” of Ábalos.
Ábalos’s situation, therefore, has become complicated in the last week, even more so when the PSOE has already confirmed that it will support the request when it reaches Congress and will allow it to be investigated by the Supreme Court. According to socialist sources, the two processes, the judicial and the organic, can continue in parallel and they reject that the first could cause the second to be paralyzed. However, they emphasize that the arguments given by Ábalos and the documents sent to support his defense have been “outdated” and surpassed by the new allegations.