The shadows of the 'Baltar case': where was the baron of the PP in Ourense going on a Sunday, 215 kilometers away by official car?

Manuel Baltar, president of the PP and the Ourense Provincial Council, positions he inherited from his father José Luis, takes refuge in silence.

On Sunday, April 23, he was caught by the Civil Guard on the A-52, near the Zamora town of Asturianos, driving a car owned by the provincial institution at 215 kilometers per hour.

Baltar has reduced to "misdirection" a conduct for which the single court of Puebla de Sanabria accuses him of a crime against road safety, although he admits that it is the third traffic fine that falls to the deputation for his infractions at the wheel of a official vehicle.

The provincial institution, the only one governed by the popular in Galicia, held this Thursday an extraordinary plenary session on the case,

in which the defendant has refused to discuss the matter and clear up the unknowns surrounding his use of public resources.

He does not intend to resign and has the support of the party chaired by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

A strange official trip

Baltar gave some brief explanations last week before being charged, prompted by information about other suspicious traffic fines imposed on the Ourense Provincial Council.

He justifies that the day he was intercepted by the Civil Guard he was driving an official vehicle despite being Sunday because the next day he had meetings in Madrid.

The appointments were with the manager of a foundation called Democracy and Local Government -the ex-charge of the PP of Madrid José Luis Moreno Torres- and with "the president of the Institute for the Future of Tourism".

However, Baltar admits that, despite the fact that at 6:40 p.m. he was driving at 215 kilometers per hour some 340 kilometers from the capital of Spain, that night he did not sleep in Madrid.

He assures that he did not pay allowances for expenses to the deputation either.

He refuses to reveal where he stayed overnight during that official trip because he considers it a matter of his "private life".

And he argues that he cannot even present the ticket for the Adanero toll, the highway section to enter Madrid from Galicia, because he did not reach the city by that route.

Manuel Baltar, during the plenary session held this Thursday.

OSCAR CORRAL

This Thursday the opposition's questions to clear up the doubts that persist in this regard have remained unanswered.

The PSdeG-PSOE has unsuccessfully asked Baltar to clarify if that day he took the official car "from his private garage" and has warned him that they will request the tapes from the security cameras "that monitor the council's mobile park to verify it .

"Don't delete them," he added.

His vice president, Plácido Álvarez, spoke on behalf of Baltar, who called the matter a "little novel by chapters that seeks the greatest possible media noise."

The PP spokesman called on the opposition for "an effort to dignify politics" and "not spend time on these little things."

"The trip to nowhere is not little things," replied the socialist Nacho Gómez, "it is a waver to the citizens."

Bernardo Varela, from the BNG,

The other fines and the “invisible” driver

Baltar has admitted that the fine that the Civil Guard gave him on April 23 for driving a vehicle from the Ourense Provincial Council at a devilish speed is not the only one.

Since 2019 they have put two more, he says.

The opposition believes that there are more.

In January 2022, Traffic sanctioned the provincial body with 1,500 euros for refusing to identify the person driving a vehicle they owned who committed an offense on September 19, 2021 at 11 a.m. on a road in the municipality of Sober (Lugo). , according to the document to which this newspaper has had access.

It was also Sunday.

Baltar denies that it was he who exceeded the speed limits behind the wheel of that car that day in 2021. He admits that the six drivers that the presidency of the Ourense Provincial Council has to drive its eight official vehicles were interviewed, but “it turned out to be impossible identify the driver.

He is "the invisible man", scoffs the opposition.

“Don't drivers spend diets or hours?” asks Deputy Varela, from the BNG.

“The only explanation is that it was you, Mr. Baltar.

He understands the deputation as his private palace ”.

The socialists have challenged Baltar to have the "courage" to admit that it was he who was driving the vehicle "at 157 kilometers per hour" when the limit was 90 so as not to cause "a serious problem" for officials.

"Are you going to leave the person in charge of the council's mobile park at the feet of the horses?" Deputy Gómez asked the provincial president.

The PSOE representative has also warned him that they will reveal more compromised information "the more he tries to hide."

Gómez has insinuated that the data on Baltar's other fines come from his detractors within the PP.

And the socialist has addressed the rest of the popular deputies: "There is life after this man", he told them in reference to Baltar.

"They should not support this type of behavior."

Manuel Baltar, during the extraordinary plenary session held this Thursday.

OSCAR CORRAL

After the plenary session, the socialists have announced that, given their "scandalous" silence, they will denounce before the courts "the continued criminal use that Baltar makes of official cars."

The PSdeG also ensures that all the vehicles of the Diputación de Ourense have geolocators to know where they are at all times "except the cars of the president and his government": "He has kidnapped the institution for his whims".