A corruption scandal over the sale of face masks during the pandemic
involving an collaborator of a former minister very close to Pedro Sánchez has put the president of the Spanish government on the defensive, as he seeks to contain the controversy.
Sánchez's Socialist Party (PSOE) demanded this Monday that José Luis Ábalos, who was Minister of Transport until 2021,
resign as a deputy in Congress,
where he holds a seat.
Ábalos "is not investigated (...) We do not establish ourselves as judges, we are not prosecutors, we do not judge", but
the Socialist Party "considers that there is a political responsibility"
and that is why he must leave the seat "in the next 24 hours "said PSOE spokesperson Esther Peña at a press conference.
The matter is delicate since
Ábalos was for years part of Pedro Sánchez's inner circle
and was one of the few within the party who remained loyal to him after he was dismissed as head of the PSOE in 2016 after disastrous election results.
Re-elected as general secretary of the party in 2017 by the militants,
Sánchez elevated Ábalos to number three of the socialists
and appointed him minister when he became president of the government in mid-2018.
A trusted person of Ábalos, Koldo García,
was arrested last Wednesday by the police,
who suspect that he received hidden commissions in contracts for the sale of face masks to the public administration during the covid pandemic.
García, an advisor to Ábalos and who always appeared photographed at his side, is accused of having used his position to
obtain contracts for the sale of masks
, at the worst moment of the pandemic, for the benefit of a company that later paid him commissions.
José Luis Abalos, in 2018. Photo Reuters
These revelations have dominated the political news and the headlines of newspapers and television since last week.
According to the complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office,
García bought three apartments in the coastal town of Benidorm between 2020 and 2022
, one of which he put in the name of his daughter, who was two years old at the time.
The Prosecutor's Office indicated that the amount of money received in cash by García, and that did not come from his usual activities,
increased in March 2020
, when the contracts were awarded.
At that time,
Spain was one of the countries hardest hit by Covid
and its inhabitants were subject to one of the most severe confinements in the world.
Ábalos has denied having knowledge of the matter, but the closeness he had with Sánchez
has made this issue embarrassing for the president of the government
, just when he begins a legislature complicated by the fragility of his support in Congress, where he depends on the votes of the Catalan independentists.
Sánchez's response
Sánchez asserted on Saturday that he will be "relentless" with corruption.
This "government that was born (...) from the need to end the corruption of the previous administration," has made "exemplarity its flag," said Sánchez, referring to his arrival to power in 2018, by a motion of censorship against the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy, weakened by a corruption scandal.
"He who makes it pays
," Sánchez stressed, without directly mentioning Ábalos.
The Popular Party (PP, conservative), the main opposition party, was convinced this Monday, in the mouth of its spokesperson Borja Semper, that Ábalos
"is the first chip but not the last" that must fall
.
Semper accused the socialists of wanting to use Ábalos's resignation as a "firewall" to protect Sánchez.
To clear up any doubt, the Socialist Party itself announced that it will propose the creation in Congress of
a commission to investigate the matter.
A rising figure of the PP, the regional president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was involved in a controversy over a commission of more than 200,000 euros that her brother received for the sale of masks in 2020.
"It is absolutely disgusting"
that people "were able to profit" from the pandemic, said Esther Peña, citing Koldo García and Díaz Ayuso's brother.
Source: AFP
P.B.