Once the initial “shock” had dissipated due to the attribution by the UCO to José Luis Ábalos of a “relevant” role and “responsibility” within the “criminal plot” being investigated in the so-called “Koldo case” in the media, the sensation that is being imposed in the PSOE is that of pessimism and uncertainty. The sources consulted are unable to draw up a medium-term strategy and lament the inability to predict what the successive deliveries of the corrupt sequence will bring. «There are still phones to overturn. “It’s unpredictable,” says a leader consulted when asked to gauge the margins of the scandal that, on the other hand, official bodies strive to limit to the sphere of control of Ábalos, in relation to his trusted personnel and their responsibilities to the Transportation front.
But the truth is that not even those who strive to project calm – “zero concern,” they say in those around the President of the Government – can hide their nervousness. The discomfort is evident and due caution is redoubled to prevent exhaustive assertions denying the facts from being later called into question by the investigation. For example, everything related to the management of the visit of the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, and the lies that were told in the parliamentary headquarters, justifying Ábalos’s intercession as a diplomatic mission.
However, there are charges that already warn about the “risk of collapse” if the plot exceeds the walls of Transport and spills over to other ministries or leaders who, then, were regional presidents and today hold high responsibilities. They refer to Ángel Víctor Torres, former councilor of the Canary Islands and today Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, and the current president of Congress, the third authority of the State, Francina Armengol, who once headed the Balearic government. «The feeling is of the end of the cycle», they lament, remembering that «a week ago we were trying to get our heads around the “Begoña Gómez case” and now this».
The comparison does not hold up, because with regard to the investigation of the president’s wife it has not been possible to demonstrate any government involvement, while the Koldo case already represents the most serious case of corruption that the PSOE faces in the more than six years of Pedro Sánchez’s government. The truth is that Moncloa seems to have too many open fronts. The sources consulted complain that good economic management is continually made invisible by this type of scandals and to this is added the instability in the Congress of Deputies, where parliamentary defeats follow one another and the Budgets remain up in the air, waiting for the celebration of the congressional processes of ERC and Junts.
Internally, the panorama is not more peaceful. What was understood as a tactical advance by the 41st Federal Congress to shield itself and achieve control over some inoperative territorial federations, electorally speaking, has ended up uncovering a struggle hidden in the shadow of Sánchez’s hyper-leadership, with some federations willing to give the internal battle.
In parallel, the Government and Ferraz try to mark distances, an abyss, between the current leadership and Ábalos. Whoever was everything under the mandate of Sánchez, the court Secretary of Organization and holder of the ministerial portfolio that handles the largest public budget, has been relegated to a stain on the record of the Executive that he came to regenerate and that put an end to the corruption of the PP with a motion of censure. For the current leadership of the PSOE, Ábalos has already become unmentionable and they refer to him as “that person”, a qualification as indeterminate as it is loaded with pejorative meaning.
Yesterday was not an easy Monday for the socialists who appeared at the federal headquarters in Ferraz protected by the almost 40 cases of corruption that the PP is currently prosecuting and of which the spokesperson, Esther Peña, took care of giving a full account, including pointing up to its instruction phase. However, beyond trying to divert the fire towards the popular and even advance what they criticize: threatening to take Albero Núñez Feijóo to court, if he does not appear in the investigation commission to account for the contracts of the Xunta to relatives, there were no clear explanations, much less denials. Nothing that conveys a certain security.
Peña dispatched the anonymous testimonies of businessmen who, in the media, claim to have taken up to 90,000 euros in paper bags to the Ferraz headquarters to deliver them to the plot, without denying the information. Information has led to the complaint that the PP has filed against the PSOE for alleged irregular financing. The socialist spokesperson limited herself to ensuring that “there are many ghosts who boasted about relationships they did not have, talking to people who did not speak and pretending to be what they were not.” However, he was not able to determine whether those meetings occurred or not. Alluding to data protection, which requires entry records to be destroyed after 30 days, Peña acknowledged not having data and recalled that it must be those who claim to have been in Ferraz “who have to prove it.”
The management also ruled out that Ábalos would endorse “excessive expenses” to the party, as published by “El País” this weekend, ensuring that Ferraz’s management was “freaking out” with the economic volume of the invoices that the then Secretary of Organization charged. to the PSOE. Peña assured that in the “internal audits” that the training carries out “on a regular basis” no irregularities were detected. “He didn’t whistle anything,” acknowledge socialist sources, who also avoid linking this issue with the dismissal of Ábalos as number three in the party. Something for which even today no explanation has been given.