Feijóo, on his friendship with Marcial Dorado: "At that time he was a smuggler, when I met him. Smuggler, never a drug trafficker"

Alberto Núñez Feijóo has tried to justify this Friday his friendship with the drug trafficker Marcial Dorado, with whom he maintained a close relationship in the nineties, defending that Dorado, when they met, was "a smuggler" and not a narco. The leader of the PP has thus tried to downplay the importance of the case by saying that Dorado was only dedicated to smuggling, although for a long time he maintained that he did not know what he did. In the final stretch of the campaign, Feijóo does not manage to get rid of this old issue that haunts him. His latest defense strategy is to also use the tactic of the fan, by ensuring that "there are photos of this man with politicians of all parties."

In an interview on the Cope chain, Feijóo has made this morning the following account of his relationship with the drug trafficker: "In 2009, the first time I ran for the presidency of the Xunta de Galicia, the secretary general of my party called me telling me that he had had a conversation with the PSOE in which they had told him that if I did not lower the tone [of the campaign] they would go to me. Take some pictures with a drug trafficker. At that time he was a smuggler, when I met him. Smuggler, never a drug trafficker. My answer was: let them take out what they want. Then, they took him out in the campaign of the 12th again. Then, the photos published by EL PAÍS appear in the 13th. I gave a press conference in Parliament and asked for an appearance where I clarified what had happened. I met this person when he had nothing to do with this matter, and in fact it can be proven. And, most importantly: this is in a summary of the National Court. And in the summary they make it clear that there are many people with photos with this man of all political parties and no politician was even called to testify. That's it."

In the two summaries instructed in the National Court there are no photos of any politician with Marcial Dorado, not even those of Feijóo, because the judge decided that they lacked criminal relevance.

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Feijóo now recognizes that Dorado was a smuggler when he met him, although when EL PAÍS published the photographs, in 2013, the Galician politician maintained that he did not know what the man of the yachts, mansions and luxurious SUVs with whom he shared leisure time was doing. The same capo who had already been arrested in the two major operations that were launched in Galicia against smuggling and drug trafficking, including the famous Nécora, which made Judge Garzón land by helicopter in the Arousa estuary.

In his statements on Friday, what is not clear is whether the PP leader admits for the first time that he knew then that Dorado was a smuggler, or what he is admitting is that he knows now, years later. But the truth is that at the beginning of the nineties, when the friendship was established, Dorado had already occupied dozens of pages in the Galician and even national press, because the police forces pointed him out as the largest tobacco smuggler in the country and had spent a season on the run in Portugal. This week, Feijóo's successor at the head of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, said that he, then, who had just finished the race, "knew the same news as everyone else." "I was informed, like everyone else, of everything that was happening."

Feijóo has complained this Friday that Pedro Sánchez has used "this garbage" against him, since the socialist candidate has urged him to explain his "disturbing" friendship with a narco, and has insisted on the old matter because three decades ago of that friendship. "They took them [the photos] again in '16 and '20. 30 years ago of some photos, I have five electoral campaigns and I did not expect the President of the Government to use this garbage to try to discredit the adversary. I'm not going to talk about photos because it seems improper and would fall into its own trap." However, although Feijóo claimed that he had broken the relationship with Dorado in the late nineties, when he had supposedly discovered what his friend did, the judge who arrested Dorado for drug trafficking in 2003 revealed that the telephone taps of those months collected conversations with the current leader of the PP, then president of Correos.

The leader of the PP has directly attacked Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz accusing them, without saying specific names, of having photos with "dictators, with people accused of drug trafficking, with people who could not enter the EU", and "who, however, attended in Barajas", people "who kiss now" in a "public and notorious" way, he said in reference to Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuelan policy on the EU sanctions list since June 2018 "for violating human rights and undermining democracy and the rule of law."

The PP candidate has also referred to other issues in the interview, in which he has acknowledged that Spain will have to face an "effort" to reduce more than 13,000 million euros of deviation from the deficit, as committed to Brussels. Feijóo assumes that it will be up to him to do it, because he takes his victory for granted this Sunday, but says he will ask the EU "to let the new prime minister look for a sliding path towards fiscal consolidation, but not an abrupt cut." "Spain has a 4.8% deficit. We owe more than ever. Our public finances are some of the most worrying in the EU. If we have to reduce the deficit to 3%, the effort is more than 13,000 million, "he warned. "Yes or yes we're going to have to do it."

In an interview in the newspaper El Mundo published today, Feijóo refers, on the other hand, to the relationship he intends to maintain if he comes to power with the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, of the extreme right, which he hopes will be "correct and fruitful". "I think that Mrs. Meloni may have in the future more relationship with the European People's Party," says the leader of the PP, in favor of entering this ultra policy in his party. The leader of the PP and the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, have refused to grant interviews to EL PAÍS in this electoral campaign.

Feijóo also addresses the Catalan conflict in El Mundo and reveals that he would have intervened in Catalan public television when Article 155 was approved. "I would have proposed to the PSOE to intervene TV3. Is it part of the Catalan Administration or not?", says the popular leader, launching a message of hard hand with Catalonia very different from the messages of détente that he has sought to transmit in this campaign, in which he came to say that he would maintain the dialogue table with the independentistas, although he later rectified.

He receives every afternoon the bulletin Diario electoral, with the analysis of Ricardo de Querol, deputy director, and Luis Barbero, editor-in-chief editor.

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