The investigating court number 2 of Salamanca has filed this Friday the open case against the provincial PP for a case of alleged irregular financing in the primaries held by the PP of Castilla y León in 2017 to elect its candidate for the regional elections.
The order concludes that the facts analyzed —the payment made to the formation by various senior party officials to cover the debts of militants so that they could participate in these internal elections— "lack criminal characterization."
Those primaries were won by the current regional president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, and have been questioned because the origin of 24,140 euros of the more than 60,000 collected in the Salamanca vote was unknown.
With these indications, the judge accused the PP of Salamanca as a legal person, its then president and the manager in November 2021. The resolution of this Friday rules, however, that the contributions of the representatives of the PP do not imply "illegal anonymous donation ” to finance the party, but they were only a way to “facilitate the participation of members in the electoral day of internal primary elections”.
The Los Verdes group, which exercises the private prosecution, has already announced that it will appeal the order.
The case has been dismissed after a long judicial journey that started in 2019 after an anonymous complaint.
The magistrate is emphatic when dictating the file: "In the investigated case, it has been proven, through testimonial statements given in court, that both elected officials and members of the Popular Party of Salamanca freely and voluntarily delivered, individually, contributions to pay the quotas of the members of the Popular Party of Salamanca who were not 'up to date', and thus ensure that all of them meet the requirement of 'being up to date with the payment of quotas' to be able to vote on the day of the primary elections” , holds.
The order states that these economic contributions "do not constitute a donation or contribution to the political party with the purpose of proceeding to finance it", but that the objective was to pay owed quotas "with the purpose of updating the voter census".
The judge considers it proven that there are no irregularities because the Salamancan PP provided nominative affidavits "whose content is identical in format to the previous affidavits that were ratified in court, varying the amounts contributed, which means that none of them can be classified those payments or income as anonymous donations when they are fully identified, with names and surnames”.
The opening of this judicial case led to the imputation of the provincial PP a year and a half ago, as well as that of its provincial president, Francisco Javier Iglesias —who resigned a few months ago—, and of the manager of the formation, María Isabel Sánchez.
The payments analyzed are recorded between December 31, 2016 and March 17, 2017, when the manager repaid an accumulated debt of 61,937.65 euros through different bank deposits.
The amount came from unpaid quotas of 4,900 members of the Charra province and made it possible for these people to finally exercise their right to vote in an internal process in which Mañueco, then mayor of Salamanca, surpassed his counterpart in León, Antonio Silván, and became a PP candidate for the presidency of Castilla y León.
Mañueco garnered 4,087 votes against his rival's 1,905.
Only 13% of the militants of the regional PP participated in these primaries.
The judge explained a few months ago that there were 41,190 euros paid thanks to "elected officials, trusted personnel and affiliates who voluntarily collaborated" to correct the pending accounts of "defaulting affiliates".
Within that sum were the 24,140 euros questioned as possible illegal financing, prohibited in article 5 of Organic Law 8/2007 on financing of political parties.
The order states, however, that although dialectically such contributions were considered as "donations", it is "fully proven that none of them is anonymous and that none of them exceeds the amount of 50,000 euros per year".